text:
Google Talk not working over Corporate Wifi. What can I do?
Whenever I'm connected to our corporate wifi, google chat goes offline (i.e. the contact list fades to grey).
I think this is due to a port setting. As far as I know only 80 (http), 443 (ssl) and ftp (21) are allowed from inside my company.
The problem is, that my android device automatically turns off the 3g connection as soon as wifi is available.
I tried to find a setting for the Access Point, but couldn't find one. Likewise, I don't know if there is any setting in Google chat.
Android 2.2, LG-P500, Firmware V10-OCT-01-2010, Kernel 2.6.32.9
Do you have any suggestions?

Is turning off your Wifi and just using 3g an option?

well, no: I would still like to use Wifi for browsing since it is (most of the time) much faster. No way?

The problem is, that my android device automatically turns off the 3g connection as soon as wifi is available.

Why don't you shut off Wi-Fi?
Since you can't control port forwarding or anything at work, there's not much else you can do.  Although, you could just ask and see whether they'd consider opening the Google Talk ports (443/5222/5223).

You may find this pedantic but I think that turning wifi off and on just to chat isn't a great solution... thanks for your answer though.

According to this thread Google Talk will attempt to connect over port 80 if it's other ports are blocked.

Google Talk will work over port 80. If you are using the official
  client, it will even switch to trying 80 if the normal port (5222) is
  blocked.
That said, if your employer is blocking talk.google.com instead of port
  5222, you'll probably find yourself up a creek. :)

Sounds like your best bet is to stop using their Wi-Fi and use 3G for connection to Google Talk.

I don't think the Android client would do this the same as the PC client.  I could be wrong though.

what if you need to use a proxy on your lan. does gtalk work via a proxy

A lot of corporate networks block the 5XXX ports. I'm not entirely sure what Google Talk uses as I've read 5222 and 5228.
The Google Talk client for windows falls back to port 443 if the connection using port 5XXX is unsuccessful.
However the Android client does not do this. It only tries on port 5XXX.
Unfortunately at the moment the only solution is to contact your corporate IT and ask them to allow access using the 5XXX port.

Google talk on the android phone only tries port 5222 and if it fails it will not try port 80 (as the specification requires).
But there is another answer:  IMO (available on Google Play) works over port 80, so it will work behind a corporate firewall.  And it is a really good app.


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Upgrading developer phone
I've an HTC Magic Developer Phone running Android 1.6. I want to upgrade it to Android 2.1. Please guide me how to do this.

If your phone is actually a developer phone supplied through Google (and not a consumer phone bought through a phone company) then you've actually got an ADP2, not a Magic, beware of that when looking for ROMs as they are some subtle differences in the hardware.
Official ADP2 images are hosted by HTC at http://developer.htc.com/ but only up to Android 1.6 for ADP1 and ADP2.
If you do actually have an HTC Magic (aka mytouch 3G)  then depending on your phone company there are official Froyo releases for the Magic which have been pushed out OTA by some phone companies, see this previous question for more info When will my phone get the Android 2.2 update (FroYo)?. If going for unofficial ROMs then be careful again as there are (at least) two hardware variants of this with incompatible ROMs, the Magic A, and Magic B.

If you don't mind rooting your phone, perhaps the easiest thing to do is to flash CyanogenMod on it. The HTC Magic is supported up to CM6 (Android 2.2, Froyo). You can find more details here, be sure to read up on the wiki. It is not supported on CM7 or later (Android 2.3, Gingerbread).

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Connecting Android mobile to Mail Exchange Server
I am currently pursuing a project, and need to connect my Android device to an Exchange mail server. I am having a problem connecting my Android mobile to a Windows server. Could any body please guide me through it? Do I need to connect it using EDGE, GPRS, or Wi-Fi?

In my case it works without any problem it, detailed descriptions of the problem may be helpful

I agree, we need a detailed description of what you're doing and what is resulting.  Your credentials, port settings, etc. are probably slightly off.

The version of Android will be key here, as there were a number of improvements to connecting to Exchange in Froyo.

In order to connect your phone to an Exchange account follow these steps:

From the home screen hit the menu button and choose "Settings".
Choose "Accounts & sync".
Click the "Add account" button on the bottom.
Choose "Corporate".
Enter the full E-mail address and Password of the Exchange account you're trying to link, then click "Next".
This step may require you to contact your Exchange server administrator.  You will need to know the name of the domain on which the Exchange server resides, and then enter it in the first field before the "\".  Leave the Password field alone, and make sure that the Server field lists either the IP address of your Exchange server or the name (commonly something like "mail.mycompany.com").  Depending on how the Exchange server is set up you may need to check or uncheck the two boxes below the Server field, but usually the defaults work fine.  Then hit "Next".
Agree to the disclaimer (all it says is that the administrator of the Exchange server has the ability to wipe any Exchange-related information from your phone without your permission) and you should be all set!

If everything went according to plan you should start receiving E-mails right away in the E-mail app.
Edit: These steps should work for Android 2.2 and definitely work for 2.3.

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


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MS Office Client for Android

Possible Duplicate:
How can I create and edit Microsoft Office documents in Android

I just bought a new Galaxy Tab P1000 and I want to open my office documents like Excel, Word, and Powerpoint.
Is there already a client like Microsoft Office for Android?

There is a great app called DocumentsToGo which lets you open MS Office files. If you want to be able to create new ones and edit them in your mobile phone, you need to buy a licence for their app, but otherwise you can use it for free.


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What does Skype use all those permissions for?
I'd like to know what Skype does with all the permissions it asks for.
Is there any page where Skype (the company) justifies the various permissions?
Does it make any difference, whether I'm a paying customer or not?
The permissions are as following:

Your accounts

act as an account authenticator

Allows an application to use the account authenticator capabilities of the AccountManager, including creating accounts and getting and setting their passwords.

manage the accounts list

Allows an application to perform operations like adding, and removing accounts and deleting their password.

use the authentication credentials of an account

Allows an application to request authentication tokens.

Hardware controls

change your audio settings

Allows application to modify global audio settings such as volume and routing.

record audio

Allows application to access the audio record path.

Your location

coarse (network-based) location

Access coarse location sources such as the cellular network database to determine an approximate device location, where available. Malicious applications can use this to determine approximately where you are.

Network communication

full Internet access

Allows an application to create network sockets.

Your personal information

read contact data

Allows an application to read all of the contact (address) data stored on your device. Malicious applications can use this to send your data to other people.

write contact data

Allows an application to modify the contact (address) data stored on your device. Malicious applications can use this to erase or modify your contact data.

Phone calls

read phone state and identity

Allows the application to access the phone features of the device. An application with this permission can determine the phone number and serial number of this phone, whether a call is active, the number that call is connected to and the like.

Storage

modify/delete USB storage contents modify/delete SD card contents

Allows an application to write to the USB storage. Allows an application to write to the SD card.

System tools

disable keylock

Allows an application to disable the keylock and any associated password security. A legitimate example of this is the phone disabling the keylock when receiving an incoming phone call, then re-enabling the keylock when the call is finished.

prevent device from sleeping

Allows an application to prevent the device from going to sleep.

retrieve running applications

Allows application to retrieve information about currently and recently running tasks. May allow malicious applications to discover private information about other applications.

write sync settings

Allows an application to modify the sync settings, such as whether sync is enabled for Contacts.

modify global system settings

Allows an application to modify the system's settings data. Malicious applications can corrupt your system's configuration.

More:

Your accounts

discover known accounts

Allows an application to get the list of accounts known by the device.

Hardware controls

control vibrator

Allows the application to control the vibrator.

Network communication

view Wi-Fi state

Allows an application to view the information about the state of Wi-Fi.

view network state

Allows an application to view the state of all networks.

System tools

read sync settings

Allows an application to read the sync settings, such as whether sync is enabled for Contacts.

read sync statistics

Allows an application to read the sync stats; e.g., the history of syncs that have occurred.

Default

modify secure system settings

Allows an application to modify the system's secure settings data. Not for use by normal applications.

Accounts, personal info, and location are the only ones that seem out of place to me.  Location's probably for statistics though.

Accounts is probably used to store UserID/PW, personal info is probably to grab your contacts to re-list them in the Skype app since they market it as a phone replacement, and location is probably because something in Skype uses geotagging along with stats like Matthew Read said.

Accounts is used so they can added a Skype account associated with contacts so they can be kept separate if you want to delete skype or something.

The real problem is a platform design where enabling application features which some users might like requires that every user either grant all the required permissions or not use the app at all.

The author forgot one line: directly call phone numbers
Allows the application to call phone numbers without your intervention. Malicious applications may cause unexpected calls on your phone bill. Note that this does not allow the application to call emergency numbers. What does Skype need this for?

Your accounts - Skype acts as an account authenticator the way Google does; most likely used to easily store your Skype username and password
Your location - probably for statistics and some location-based features
Your personal information - allows you to directly call a contact's phone number, as well as their Skype account, from the contacts application
Phone calls - almost every application needs access to to this section in order to get the phone's unique ID. Skype also needs this to know if the phone is in a call.
Storage - probably to store cached data
System tools - all of these allow Skype to prevent the phone becoming idle during a call, as well as sync contacts

All other permissions should be obvious.


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Com Error in Blip TV App for Optimum V Phone
Good afternoon, I am attempting to get the Android Blip application working for my phone, as of this moment it only works for the Samsung Viberant and I currently do not have that phone.  Now though the power of the Internet I managed to locate the apk and was able to get it installed to my phone, however whenever I attempt to run the device I get this error:

The application blip.tv
  (process com.blipnetworks.android.blipdroid) has
  stopped unexpectedly.  Please try again.

I took a look into the apk to see if I could find the error via an SDK to give me a better idea of what this could lead to, however in my attempts of debugging and searching I was unable to determine what the issue is for this device.  Any assistance would be great since the ARM 6 chip isn't supported in flash and this would be the only means of me viewing videos from that site.  Thank you in advance.

Talk to the developers.

Odds are if it's only supported on the Samsung Vibrant there's a good reason why.  Until Blip is released for your phone model or someone manages to modify the app for other phones you're likely out of luck.


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How can I get dictionaries for more input languages?
Ok, so I figured out I can enable other input languages through settings, which at least makes it easier to enter some special characters, but only the biggest languages have "Dictionary available". Is it possible to somehow add dictionaries for the other selectable input languages?

It looks like that all dictionaries are embedded into keyboards, but you can try to find the dictionary by searching in Android market with query:

Your_desired_language language pack

For example for "Finnish language pack" there are packs for 3 different keyboards: SlideIT, AnySoftKeyboard and Gingerbread keyboard (unfortunately not the original one, you should install Gingerbread keyboard app from market even if you already have original Gingerbread keyboard).


text:
Does ConnectBot supports SSH tunnel /authenticating with pubkey/?
Can I connect with ConnectBot to an SSH server to SSH tunnel that doesn't uses passwords, because it's only using "ssh pubkey login"?

Thanks.

Yes, ConnectBot supports pubkey authentication and tunnels.


text:
How can I stop Samsung Galaxy Spica restarting itself in a loop?
I recently bought a used galaxy spica its in really good condition and etc..but when i launched it up there is something fishy going on...
It restarts in a loop...
As in, it boots up, i can use the phone for around minute or so, then it restarts...then again i can use it for a minute or so...and it restarts...i cant call or anything cause it restarts all the time.
It has been updates from the original 1.5 to 2.1 eclare, if you know a fix, please do tell.

If it was working before, try uninstalling the app(s) you put on it most recently.  They might be the problem.  After that, the first thing to try is probably a factory reset.

Edit: OK, so basically your ROM is totally screwed up.  I would just replace it.
Some official firmware is linked in this XDA post.  Download whichever you prefer, then use Odin as described below.
Download Odin for Windows (search for "Heimdall" if you are on Linux).  Then do the following:

Put your phone into Download mode

Remove the battery
Hold the VolumeDown, Camera, and End Call buttons:

Reinsert the battery.
After a few seconds a yellow triangle with an android in it should appear, you can let go of the keys since this is download mode.

Start up Odin.
Attach the phone to USB so that Odin recognizes it.
Load the .tar file you downloaded (the ROM) into the PDA field of Odin.  (If you got a .rar or .zip instead of a .tar, you need to extract the .tar inside the archive.  A .tar.md5 file is fine.)
Optional: Load the 512 .pit file into the PIT field of Odin and check "Re-partition".  You should only do this if you screwed up the partitions or perhaps if flashing without this doesn't work.  Make sure you have the appropriate .pit file for your device variant.
Hit Start.  Odin will tell you when it's done; if it fails, reboot your phone and try again.  (This happens occasionally).

Note that you do this at your own risk; Odin is very powerful and misusing it can damage your phone.  I've used it dozens of times myself safely.

There are no apps and i havent installed any apps. Done a factory reset already, didn't help. Thanks for the answer tho'

@Asko OK, I've updated my answer.

All right, I will go for it. I'll let you know how it went once done.


text:
Why does taking a screen shot require root access?
I was thinking about this and I don't understand the reasoning behind it.  iPhone users have this capability out of the box, and yet Apple is far more protective of their devices.
Whether this turns into a philosophical discussion or a technical discussion (or maybe both) I'd still like to understand why this limitation exists in Android.

No idea why it wasn't available before, but as of 2.3.3 non-rooted screen shot support was added for system apps, at least. As eldarerathis noted, there are some articles out there implying that this would let any app capture a screen shot now, but according to an android engineer this permission is only granted to apps signed by the system image's keys - it is only available to be rolled into the OS, not as a feature 3rd party apps can access.

I tend to think it is more of a security issue. But I've never actually seen a statement one way or the other.

The articles (and commits, in a way) are somewhat misleading. Third-party apps will still not be able to take screenshots, because the permission required to do so can only be obtained by system-signed apps. There is a question on SO where one of the Android engineers states this: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5161544/how-to-take-screenshots-in-android-2-3-3-without-root

Thanks. I wonder if that means they intend to make it a standard OS feature in the near future.

I'm marking this as the answer since it pretty clearly indicates (at least to me) that the only reason we needed root before 2.3.3 is because there was no system app designed to do it for us.

I wouldn't be surprised to see that, or at least manufacturers rolling their own apps for it.

I would think it's so that rogue apps can't transmit pictures of what you're doing.  Of course, that doesn't explain why apps that read SMS or whatever don't require root :P


text:
CM7 Launcherpro Changing Dock Icons
I downloaded some icons in extracted them to the SD card under a directory I made called icons. I've been trying to get launcherpro to change the dock icons, however whenever I click change icon the gallery always opens up. No matter what I do I cannot get the icons to show up in the gallery. I've tried deleting the gallery cache and deleting the gallery default actions as well as placing the icons in various different places on the SD card.
I would prefer the icons do not show up in the gallery at all so I could just use a file manager to choose the new icons. However, I cannot get the file manager open when I click change icon. The only program that will open is the gallery.
Can anybody help me?

After trying to fix the same issue, I just dealt with an icons folder showing up in the gallery.

Sounds to me like you only have one "Image Chooser" app installed, and you would need to install another.  I know ES File Explorer registers itself as one, so if you install that maybe it will show up in the menu and then you can use it to browse to your icons.

Of course, this assumes CM doesn't force you to use the Gallery.


text:
How can I delete my texts?
I did not realize if you have more than about 400 SMS texts in one stack, the phone seems unable to delete. I have over 5000 SMS texts in one stack and I don't have the time or patience to delete them all individually.
Hope someone can help
Thank you

You should be able to go to Settings -> Applications -> Manage applications -> All and clear the data for Messaging Storage or something similar, depending on your particular device and software.

This app should allow you to do it per contact. https://market.android.com/details?id=cn.com.opda.android.clearmaster

Great thank's a lot! It allowed me to delete the messages of only the contacts I wanted. This app in fact doesn't seem to work a lot faster than deleting with the native Android sms app, but at least it shows a descriptive progress bar with a percentage. But be prepared, the translation is really bad.

It appears that the app is not available in Play Store anymore. Would you care for an edit to mention that this answer wouldn't work anymore and is here for historical reason? Alternatively, could you add an alternative to that app in your answer? Thanks!

Just throwing this out there.  No idea if it will work, because I don't have any text threads with that many to test it on, but have you tried doing it in some other text message clients?  Which one are you using now?  Try it in the default text client, and then try downloading Handcent SMS or Chomp SMS and see if you can do it from there.  Sometimes different apps will make it possible to do something that another app that's supposed to be able to accomplish, cannot.
Good luck!


text:
How can I tell if a car stereo's controls can be used with my Android phone?
I'm thinking about getting a Pioneer DEH-2200UB, which advertises itself as having controls compatible with iPods. I will be using it with my Samsung Fascinate in my 2005 Honda Civic. Is there any way to tell if a car stereo is compatible with Android Phones (by compatible, I mean the controls can be used to control my Winamp player, or as a last resort, the default player)?
Note: I am asking for a general solution, not one specific to my particular car/stereo/phone combination (though feel free to give me a specific solution in the comments).

If the car unit support the A2DP and AVRCP Bluetooth profiles, it should be able to control your Android music player app; both my Droid (FroYo 2.2.2) and my Bionic (Gingerbread 2.3) honor the play/pause and forward/back controls on my Sony MW600 headset.
The Android 2.3 Compatibility Definition states:

7.4.3. Bluetooth
  Device implementations SHOULD include a Bluetooth transceiver. Device implementations that do include a Bluetooth transceiver MUST enable the
  RFCOMM-based Bluetooth API as described in the SDK documentation [Resources, 32]. Device implementations SHOULD implement relevant
  Bluetooth profiles, such as A2DP, AVRCP, OBEX, etc. as appropriate for the device.

A2DP provides for streaming stereo content, AVRCP provides for remote control support.

Wikipedia entry for Bluetooth

Unfortunately, there currently aren't any decks that allow you to CONTROL the music (skip songs/albums/etc) FROM the deck.  You'll need to do that on your phone.  However you can stream the music from your phone to the deck so it plays through the car speakers over bluetooth (with compatible devices) or by using a direct audio cord.
Here's an article that talks a little more about it: http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-general-discussions/57050-android-ready-car-deck.html
@matthew it depends on what kind of music files you have, typically Bluetooth streaming isn't extremely lossy, but if you're using flac or wav files there may be SOME loss (nothing noticeable) mp3s would stream at full quality though, no matter how you do it, BT should suit you just fine
@matthewread what kind of deck does your dad have? if you can find a deck that can control the Android music player I'd love to see it becauseI looked high and low for one before I installed my system last winter

Is bluetooth digital? i.e., will there be signal loss?

@Matthew The music on your phone is digital too :P it should be high enough quality to sound perfect to your ears.

My dad's deck can skip songs on his BlackBerry, I don't see why there wouldn't be a deck that can control an Android device too.

I can tell from my own experience.
My father's Renault Scenic got a integrated bluetooth module built in.
I could successfully pair an iPhone and control the music through the car's radio controls. I think the radio's display even showed the track title.
With my new Xperia mini pro I can also successfully pair with the radio but it's not possible to control the the music tracks through the radio's controls. Also the track names do not display.
I need manually select the music track on the phone.

I had the chance to try my Xperia mini pro again with the car's bluetooth radio.
I have to correct my previous statement.
Controlling the music tracks through the radio's controls is working. Don't know why it wasn't working before. Maybe I wasn't using the default music player.
The track title still isn't showing though.

The car audios which advertises compatibility with ipod/iphone(ipod direct control) are not compatible with android. If the head units are compatible with android, they will advertise it in features. I am writing this from personal experience.
While connecting my Galaxy S2 to my pioneer x3590ui the system displays unsupported or no audio(in media device mode). If you switch the usb connection to mass storage mode, the system can detect the phone as a USB storage and can start playing media files on phone's mass storage or SD card.
I am mentioning about the music compatibility through USB. But if you have a unit with Bluetooth, you can control music or even make calls on your phone with the head unit.

I suspect the Android phone will just mount as a mass-storage device and play audio on the unit itself.
The reason a lot of headunits state that they can control iPods, is because it's not as straight forward as treating an iPod as a mass-storage device because the files are encrypted and the device may not even be formatted as a FAT formatted device.  Therefore, the easiest(only?) method for the headunit manufacturers to access the music on an iPod is to implement the control protocol via the iPod connector.

The files on an iPod are not encrypted. Just hard to get at.

Files bought from iTunes can/are encrypted with FairPlay DRM.

Files bought from iTunes can/are encrypted with FairPlay DRM.   Even if not all of the data is encrypted the point still stands.  There is encryption/DRM involved.  So along with headunit manufacturers having to consider two different filesystems, controlling the iPod rather than accessing the files directly.

Kenwood just released head units compatible with Android. the kdc-252 is the cheap model

This doesn't answer the overall question.


text:
How to root and what apps to use

Possible Duplicate:
How do I root my device?

I have an HTC Incredible 2. I would like to know how to remove the locked pre installed apps and what apps I need for longer battery life and to maximize memory. (cpu not storage.)
My device is S-ON by the way. I know that makes it more difficult at the least, but if there is a way I would like to know.

Try this: http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/dfy5x/all_how_to_root_your_android_phone/

Answer that are nothing but links to other sites are not generally considered helpful, if for no other reason than should that link go away the answer becomes worse than useless.


text:
How do I grant root privileges to an app?
I have installed Root Explorer on my HTC G12 phone. When try to view /init.rc, it shows 'No root privilege' and ask me to root my phone.
It seems Root Explorer didn't run as root (or this process is not added to some group with storage access). And, it seems on a non-rooted device, when the phone boots up, we are logged in as a non-root user.
Where does Android control the log-in user's privilege level? Is it in the init process?

The log in user is always a user.  You have to invoke su to run specific commands as the root user, and su will not work unless you have rooted your device to gain access to the root account (imagine it's password prtoected and you have to crack the password).  To gain root access on your device, check out How do I root my Android device?
Root Explorer and similar apps will automatically invoke su when they are able to.  The SuperUser app can be used to control access to su, so that you don't have to worry about rogue applications elevating themselves beyond your user permissions.


text:
How can I verify the authenticity of an APK file I downloaded?
The latest update of Google Maps is unavailable in my country, so I downloaded a version by googling for "Google Maps 5.4.0 apk".  I did in fact find it, but now I wonder how I can tell if this is in fact the same version as in the market.
How can I be sure that it hasn't been tampered with? Are apps signed in any way? Is there any way of checking the signatures?

If you visit, from your mobile, the page: m.google.com/maps, does it offer you a download link or something alike?

@Nicolás: It links to the market, from which I can't download it.

related Verify Android apk has not been repackaged?

If you have a second app that is "authentic" and comes from the same vendor, you can compare if both apps are signed using the same keys/identity: Comparing signatures of apks

As long as it's an APK and not an AAB... you can compare the app signature. This just proves that the app has been signed by a developer who generated a key/

Sidestepping the debate over the legitimacy of installing that app on your phone, the question of verification is one that I've been meaning to understand for a while, and you've prompted me to try to figure out a possible way of verifying who signed an apk.
Android apps are signed in the normal manner of .jar files (.apk is really just a special .jar which is just a special .zip) however it may not be trivial to trace the authenticity of the certificates unless you have something known good to compare to.  That's basically what the phone itself does - verifies that something that claims to be from the same party as something already on the phone actually is - the phone doesn't refuse to install things with unknown signers, it can only (object to/clear application data of) apparent forgeries when something new doesn't match something old that it claims to.
You will need to have jarsigner and keytool. I believe these come from the JDK which is a prerequisite to the android SDK rather than the SDK itself.
First you want try to verify the public key contained within the .apk.  Usually this is in META-INF/CERTS.RSA but it can be in another file - unzip -l will tell you.  You want to see what you can find out about it:
unzip -p suspect.apk META-INF/CERT.RSA | keytool -printcert

That's going to dump out a lot of information about who the signer claims to be.  Some certificates are apparently themselves signed by known parties, but without figuring out how to trace that, I suspect you could do something like this:
unzip -p suspect.apk META-INF/CERT.RSA | keytool -printcert | grep MD5
unzip -p knowngood.apk META-INF/CERT.RSA | keytool -printcert | grep MD5

If you have a known trusted apk from the same author who used the same certificate.  I'm assuming that the certificates having the same MD5 sum is enough.
Assuming you've decided to trust the certificate, then you can see if it has been used to sign each of the files within the .apk
jarsigner -verbose -verify suspect.apk

(If there's more than one .RSA file in the archive, you should add the -certs flag to tell you which certificate(s) have been used to sign each file, so you can be sure its the certificate you verified)

@Chris Stratton Is it possible to copy Google Maps apk off a device ? Then one can check the certs as you said.

Recent Android Apps often do no longer contain a v1 signature that can be verified with jarsigner (only a v2 orand v3 signature). Therefore apksigner from Android SDK should be the preferred way to verify a signature of an APK file.

Verifying an APK signature
The correct way to verify an APK file is to use apksigner.
apksigner is part of the Android build tools (Andorid SDK), therefore you may find multiple versions installed, one for each build-tools version installed.
One example path within the Android SDK to apksigner is:
android-sdk/build-tools/30.0.1/apksigner

For more details on how to get apksigner see last chapter of this answer.
Execute apksigner this way:
apksigner verify --verbose --print-certs "Signal-website-universal-release-4.49.13.apk"

Verifies
Verified using v1 scheme (JAR signing): true
Verified using v2 scheme (APK Signature Scheme v2): true
Verified using v3 scheme (APK Signature Scheme v3): true
Number of signers: 1
Signer #1 certificate DN: CN=Whisper Systems, OU=Research and Development, O=Whisper Systems, L=Pittsburgh, ST=PA, C=US
Signer #1 certificate SHA-256 digest: 29f34e5f27f211b424bc5bf9d67162c0eafba2da35af35c16416fc446276ba26
Signer #1 certificate SHA-1 digest: 45989dc9ad8728c2aa9a82fa55503e34a8879374
Signer #1 certificate MD5 digest: d90db364e32fa3a7bda4c290fb65e310
Signer #1 key algorithm: RSA
Signer #1 key size (bits): 1024
Signer #1 public key SHA-256 digest: 75336a3cc9edb64202cd77cd4caa6396a9b5fc3c78c58660313c7098ea248a55
Signer #1 public key SHA-1 digest: b46cbed18d6fbbe42045fdb93f5032c943d80266
Signer #1 public key MD5 digest: 0f9c33bbd45db0218c86ac378067538d
<skipped a lot of warnings>

Estimate the authenticity of the signer certificate
Now you have verified the APK, but you still don't know if you can trust the person/organization who has signed the APK file. This is because on Android APK signatures use by definition self-signed certificates. If you can trust a certificate is therefore a difficult question. The only way is to check the other apps that have been signed using the same certificate.
The only way I know to do so is to use online PlayStore crawling services like androidobservatory.org. It has an API for checking which apps have been signed by the same certificate using the certificate SHA-1 digest:

SHA-1: https://androidobservatory.org/cert/45989DC9AD8728C2AA9A82FA55503E34A8879374

Edit: apkmirror.com also allows to search for the certificate digest. Just enter the plain SHA-1 or SHA-256 certificate digest (without colons or spaces) in the search field:

SHA-1: https://www.apkmirror.com/?post_type=app_release&searchtype=app&s=45989DC9AD8728C2AA9A82FA55503E34A8879374
SHA-256: https://www.apkmirror.com/?post_type=app_release&searchtype=apk&s=29f34e5f27f211b424bc5bf9d67162c0eafba2da35af35c16416fc446276ba26

On this page you can see all the other APK files on Google Play Store that are signed with the same certificate.
Getting and executing apksigner
Apksigner is a Java tool and Google provides for start-up a batch file apksigner.bat(Windows) respectively a shell script apksigner.sh (Linux, MacOS).
As mentioned before it is included in each build-tools version of Android SDK. But it is not placed in PATH so you can not simply open a command-prompt or terminal and execute apksigner, instead you have to manually provide the full path to apksigner.bat/apksigner.sh.
If you don't want to install the whole Android SDK (with or without Android Studio) you can directly download build tools and extract and execute apksigner. Links to the all build-tools are provided on this website (the provided links go to the original Google download locations).
I prefer apksigner from build-tools v30:

build-tools 30.0.1 Linux
build-tools 30.0.1 MacOS
build-tools 30.0.1 Windows

You only need the file lib/apksigner.jar from the archive. Extract it  and open a shell in the folder. Then execute java -jar apksigner.jar.
To execute you need Java 9 or higher (best Java 11 or 17).
Using this direct approach the command to execute apksigner is
java -jar apksigner.jar verify --verbose --print-certs "Signal-website-universal-release-4.49.13.apk"

Or if you use full path names - replace the <..> sections with the appropriate path that works on your OS:
<path to java 9+>/java -jar <path to apksigner>/apksigner.jar verify --verbose --print-certs "<absolute or relative path to apk to be verified>"

This is the answer that helped the most, thanks! I used apksigner to compare the cert from an app from the same developer I got from the Google App Store and the one I got from ApkMirror

For anyone looking to NOT download 1 GB of SDK, this is direct the download link to the (current) build tools: https://dl.google.com/android/repository/91936d4ee3ccc839f0addd53c9ebf087b1e39251.build-tools_r30.0.3-windows.zip

@BorislavIvanov You should mention that your Link is Windows only. besides that there is still the option do download only the Android SDK without Android Studio. Check the section "Command line tools only" here: https://developer.android.com/studio#downloads It contains the SDK manager that allows to download the "Build tools r30" you have linked. In total you end up with about 150MB download.

@Robert No, the "Command line tools only" files doesn't contain apksigner

@BorislavIvanov ...and neither does Android Studio

@kerstin92 Android Studio comes with an installation of Android SDK and at least one version of build-tools, so you should have apksigner installed (but not in the path). You have to call it using the full path to apksigner.bat/apksigner.sh to execute it.

@Robert No, it's not part of Android Studio, but came with Build Tools v24.0.3 (but was removed again in later version as it seems). And there is no download for older versions of Build Tools on the Android website. I have the impression that people at Google no longer want any outsider to use apksigner

@kerstin92 Just downloaded build tools for API 33 and apksigner.jar is included. So please recheck your installation and make sure you have at least one build tools package of API around 30 installed.

There is (now) an apksigner tool in build-tools that does what you want. From the docs:

Check whether the APK's signatures are expected to be confirmed as valid on all Android platforms that the APK supports:
apksigner verify [options] app-name.apk

Where to download?

(from official/"trusted" sources)

You can also try uploading the APK to the free VirusTotal.com virus checker.  It will generate a unique hash for the APK and if others have already uploaded it to test it (very likely) then you will have more of an idea that the APK is valid.
The service will also scan the APK with over 60 virus scanners and let you know if it believes it has similar signatures to viruses already found.

I wouldn't trust the virus check, as doubt that these anti-virus programs focus on just every Android APK ever distributed. Also, the MD5 will not tell you much, apart from that the same file has been uploaded before.

@Stan - It scans the bytes in the file for malware bytes. It doesn't have to know every APK ever distributed. Also, it's not an MD5, it's a SHA256 and there is a bit of additional info communicated in that if this is the first time the APK has ever been uploaded then maybe it is something unknown and more possibly malicious.  Also, most valid APKs will probably be there. Why not include this as part of analysis as another tool for use? It can provide just another level of confidence or non-confidence about the package. You don't have to consider it the final word, but considering it more data

OK I agree it's useful as an additional source, just not the only one.

To compare certificates from a suspect apk file, maybe one idea is to download it's version on the official Play Store on your phone, doing a backup on your computer and go in the backup directory, select the concerned apk file and do the same checks. You can also view the Google certificates by doing the check on a device-default application (like any com.google.android.* apk)

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet, but you don't necessarily need a command terminal to view the certs?  The apk's can generally be opened using open as zip, making it's contents parsable:

You can generally find the certs listed in META-INF > manifest.mf:

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


text:
I Want to Download ann App That is Free and is for android 1.6, i have android 2.1 and it says its not compatible

Possible Duplicate:
Why are some Apps on the market incompatible with my device?

Thats it.
I Wanna Download This App
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.projectx.android.ScouterLite&feature=search_result
And i Have an ZTE Racer With Android 2.1
What's wrong?

try contacting the developer and asking for the APK file (since the app is free, hopefully he'll accommodate you).

I have a Motorola XT300 with 2.1 and when I try to install the ING DIRECT Canada app I get the same error. Driving me nuts.

It could be all kinds of things, Google won't (yet) tell.  I'm annoyed about that myself (having bought a Samsung Galaxy 5 two weeks ago).  Posted an item to the Google's Android Help forum, but no official response (yet...).
I'd be surprised, though, if it was the carrier.  Too low camera resolution sounds more plausible (I suspect that's why I can't install Google Goggles, the Galaxy 5 camera does 2 MP only).
But... only the developer of the app could tell you which requirements they specified in the manifest.
A bit of background: an app developer can specify features her app requires.  Like "device needs a camera".  Or "device needs at least X x Y screen resolution".  The market checks this list against the device you want to install it on, and... in your case, they don't match.

Probably the screen resolution - this device seems to be 240x320, half the size of the original android phones which are themselves small by today's standards.

It's probably your carrier.  Developers can choose which carriers to allow for their apps.  As well, Google just announced the ability to allow specific devices only (not sure whether it's implemented yet).  Other ZTE Racer owners have reported such Market issues.


text:
HTC Desire S not listed on HTC support website?
I should be getting a HTC Desire S android phone in the next few days. It is listed on the HTC website at http://www.htc.com/uk/product/desires/overview.html, but doesn't appear on the HTC support site at http://www.htc.com/uk/support.aspx.
Does anyone know why this this is, or how I can get to the support page for this phone? I'd like to have a look at the Users Guide before the phone arrives.

It's listed there now.

Have you tried the manual from the International site?


text:
icons for Android
I would like to assign some simple icons to Gmail label shortcuts, like an airplane for travel. Is there a convenient way to do this? Icon selection seems to go through the Gallery app now.

@gatoatigrado Are you trying to make icons within the GMail Android app itself? Or are you trying to make icons on your home screen that open the app to a particular label? Or something else?

The second -- set a homescreen shortcut icon.

If you use ADW Launcher, you can create the label shortcut on your homescreen and then use icons from a themepack to customise the look of said shortcut.


text:
Auto login to wifi networks
My university redirects me to a https login page when accessing internet through wifi. This is irritating when trying to connect to the Internet from my Android phone. I was wondering whether there is some application to do logging in whenever that application is opened (storing credentials, of course)? If not, how can I create such an application? Is there any previous application created (with open source code) that is customized for automating logging into certain networks?

Development questions are offtopic here.  There are apps to do this, though I'm not sure if they're open source.

For the record: https://market.android.com/details?id=org.wifibrowserlogin and
https://market.android.com/details?id=co.uk.syslynx.wifiweblogin

The new URl https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.uk.syslynx.wifiwebloginapp

I use "Hotspot Droid Lite" for this (although I don't use the html login option)
We evaluated several in our workplace and this is one of the simplest to use.
There will be others on the market (as per Lie Ryan's comment)


text:
Why is the FEATURED TABLET APPS tab in the Android market not present on my PC?
As an answer to my question about applications for bigger Android screens, Daniel answered whether I noticed the FEATURED TABLET APPS tab in the PC version of the Android market.

However, on my screen, this tab is not present :

Does anyone know why this tab is not present on my version of the Android market ?
I am logged in to my market account, I have a Samsung Galaxy S and a Archos 101 tablet. Daniel has no tablet, so that can't be the reason.
I am living in Europe, so maybe it's a territorial thing ?

I'm also a European (who doesn't own a tablet) and I can't see that tab whether I'm logged in or not.

Edit: As per Lie's comment below, it looks to be US-only. The proxy site I use apparently changed to hosting in the UK :P

I'm in Canada, and also tried from a US UK (my bad) proxy.  It doesn't show up.
A quick Google search shows that the URL for the page with the tablet apps should be https://market.android.com/details?id=apps_tablet_featured.  Using this link directly doesn't work either, whereas https://market.android.com/details?id=apps_featured (the regular featured apps) does.
So I think Google just had it up temporarily and took it down.  Or, if Daniel can still see it, they're doing what Google normally does: rolling out new features slowly, to only some users at a time.

I'm on Australia, and can't see the tablet tab; but when I tried using a proxy (purportedly claiming to be a US-based one, double checked by whatismyip.com and ip2geolocation.com), the tablet tab do shows up although the site's javascript are broken.

@Lie I see it via that proxy too. Edited


text:
How can I root or make my partitions mounted rw?
I can edit firmware, how can I make my firmware rooted?
I tried changing all ro in init.rc to rw, but after boot they are mounted in ro. I guess the problem is there. Also I can't remount in adb. It says no errors but doesn't do the job. So all one-click root apps can't root, because they can't remount. How can I root or make partitions rw?
Thanks

Usually a bug is exploited to temporarily get a chosen process running as root, that is used to remount the file system read write, either startup scripts are changed and/or suid binaries added, then the file systems are synced and remounted read only again and likely the device is rebooted.
You don't normally want to have the system partition writable on an android device, even when rooted - you only make it writable on the rare occasions when you are changing it.
EDIT-Summary of comments: It appears that /system on this device is cramfs, an inherently read-only compressed file system.  Likely a modified image would need to be generated on a PC and then flashed.
Search result for dealing with this problem on rockchip based devices:
http://www.androidtablets.net/forum/rockchip-based/439-how-unpack-repack-custom-firmwares-rockchip-rk28xx.html

I want to have partiton rw. Temporary or permanent - I dont care. But I cant remount even when I root.
I edited init script, changed all ro mount to rw, flashed and nothing changes (I checked script it has my changes but they dont work)
How can I get partition mounted as rw?

Please obtain a shell that you believe is running as root and post the output of 'ps | grep sh' and 'mount | grep system'  Also, which script file did you edit and what device are you working on?

ps | grep sh http://pastebin.com/Q1PR2W3r

mount | grep system `/dev/block/mtdblock4 /system cramfs ro 0 0
`

Well that explains your problem - cramfs is inherently read only (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cramfs ).  You'll probably need to make your modifications on a PC and flash a new image for system or initrd(which is normally glued onto the kernel, but who knows in your case). What device is this?

When I type su, it gives me # in android terminal emulator. I cat tether wifi with barnacle. But I cant remount partition. I tried to edit /init.rc, changed all mounts to rw, flashed, but nothing changes. Partitions are in cramfs. Also I have rooted 2.2 for this device. (this was 2.1). Rooted 2.2 is the rooted the same as 2.1, except mounts. Partitions are always mounted as rw, and I cant remount them to ro. (they also in cramfs) I want to get same result at 2.1.

How can I change partition type for system.img?

That's likely going to be quite difficult - more likely you need to recreate the image, which seems to be normal procedure for some devices.  I've asked you twice what device it is, why do you refuse to answer?

I dont know. This is chinese noname that I got for free.

Well try to figure out what brand the processor is, see if there's anything relevant in dmesg.  A little googling suggests that rockchip-based devices are a common example of something using a cramfs system, and provides instructions for dealing with it.

Yes, it is based on rockchip.

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


text:
Is it OK to leave my Samsung Galaxy Ace charging all the time?

Possible Duplicate:
Does constant charging harm my cellphone?

Hello!
I have the Samsung Galaxy Ace but the battery life is a bit of a problem for me. Can I leave it plugged in ie. charging all the time and just take it out when I need to? Or will I damage it?
Many thanks
Best
RD
x


text:
How to turn off red-dotted-underline spelling check when text-messaging?
I've updated my HTC Desire HD A9191 to Android 2.3.3 and now I don't know how to get rid off the spelling check (red dotted underline) when text messaging. The underlining isn't present when typing in Evernote's application, for example. It is strictly text-messaging issue.
There's no spelling-check option in message settings. I've tried turning on and off spelling check under Settings->Language & Keyboard->Touch Input->Text input->Spell correction and it didn't do anything either way. I don't have enabled neither 'Prediction' nor 'Word completion'. Google search didn't find anything about red dotted underline on Androids either.
Why would I want to disable spelling check? Androids don't support my locale the way they should (QWERTZ instead of QWERTY), so I'm forced to use German locale. Which is fine, I'd use English as a system language anyway. But the spelling check is underlining non-German words, which is obviously annoying to me as a non-German native speaker.

You can use an alternative SMS app, e.g. Handcent. I think the spell checking feature is probably HTC specific (AFAIK, HTC has their own SMS app).

go to: Settings->Language & Keyboard->Touch Input->International Keyboard , and uncheck all the languages EXCEPT the one that you're texting in.

the above doesn't work :( (at least on HTC Desire Z)

This does not help if the language one is texting in is not recognized by the system.


text:
Is it possible to root the Samsung Galaxy Fit?
I have a Samsung Galaxy Fit. I am not able to find any guide on the web regarding how to root it. Is there some method suitable for beginners?

According to some users in this thread, application named "SuperOneClick" is able to successfully root your handset.  You will need to install it on your computer (various Windows and Linux flavors available).


text:
How do I upgrade my rooted Nexus One using OTA updates?
I have a Nexus One that I rooted years ago. It's running "stock" Froyo. I get offered OTA updates to Gingerbread, and I'd like to do the update.
When I choose the update, it reboots the phone, which brings me to the ClockworkMod bootloader. Now what?
Can I make this work somehow?

OTA updates can only be applied to a completely stock, non-rooted phones, using the stock recovery.
If you really want a completely stock Gingerbread, you will need to un-root your Nexus One and revert to Froyo's stock recovery.  See instructions here.
Alternatively, you can flash one of the custom Gingerbread ROMs.  Some are very close to "stock" (only pre-rooted) while others like CyanogenMod offer other tweaks on top of the original.

Are you sure?  What happens when you try to get Clockwork to install the update?

Clockwork will fail to install an official OTA.  Sometimes it starts but errors out in the middle.

OK, thanks. It handles official packages nicely on my SGS so I had no idea.


text:
Complete list of hardware keyboard shortcuts for Desire Z?
I like to use the hardware keyboard of the Desire Z including shortcuts, however I haven't found a complete list. For example, the HTC help pages don't mention Function + Backspace = Deletion of text left to the cursor.
Can anyone provide a complete list or further "secret" shortcuts? This might also involve the usage of the optical "trackball", e.g. selecting text by using it while pressing Shift.

http://www.htc.com/www/howto.aspx?id=18599&type=1&p_id=325 has some info.
Also see - http://www.htc.com/ca/support/desirez-bell/help/tips-and-tricks

Thanks, these were the help pages I referred to... hope there is more to come!

In apps where there are shortcuts. Press menu once, then hold menu. The titles of each option should now show their keyboard shortcuts, if available.

As the links in the comments are partly broken, I try to sum some things up here -- before the remaining links go to Nirvana as well.
Global Shortcuts
Access number pad – Tap the 12# button on the keyboard
Turn on CAPS – Tap and hold the up arrow/Shift key until it has an underline.
Access keyboard settings – Tap the Gear icon on the keyboard

Browser Shortcuts
Homepage – Menu + Spacebar
Find – Menu + F
Select text – Menu + E
Page Info – Menu + G
Share Page – Menu + S
Downloads – Menu + D
History – Menu + H
Settings – Menu + P

Messaging Shortcuts
Press C to compose new message
Press R to reply
Press A to reply all
Press F to forward

(Source: HTC.COM)
Assigning your own Shortcuts
While on the Home screen, you can quickly open an app or an item by pressing a keyboard shortcut.

While on the Home screen, open the slideout keyboard.
Press and hold any of the keyboard keys (A ~ Z).
Tap OK.
Tap Apps or Shortcuts, and then tap the app or shortcut that you want to assign to the selected key. If you are assigning a shortcut to an item on your phone, follow the screen instructions to proceed.
While on the Home screen, press and hold the key you’ve assigned a keyboard shortcut to. The app or item opens.

(Source: HTC.COM)


text:
How can I shut off sync or change its frequency?
I think the term is: how do I pull not push? I don't want the phone constantly checking for FB, new email, etc. every 30 seconds. But I cannot work out how to:

Limit this to once every hour or less
Stop it so that I can refresh when I want to know (and it doesn't keep doing it in the background)

Please advise.

As well as the other answers, you can change the frequency that some accounts sync by going to Settings -> Accounts and sync.  For instance, when I click on my Facebook account from there I can change the "Social networking sync interval" to none, 3 hours, 6 hours, 12 hours, or once per day.

TQ MatthewRead. I'll look at this, too :) x

On my phone (I simply don't know if this is a default Android thing or an SGS thing) I have a widget for power controls (I believe it's called "Activation", but my phone is in Hebrew so I don't know what it's really called).
In Froyo this gives you buttons for controlling:

screen brightness
GPS
Wifi
Bluetooth
Background Sync

In Gingerbread it gives some other control whose meaning I don't know.
This allows you to enable or disable sync at the tap of a button on the home screen.
This is the same as enabling or disabling background sync from Settings -> Accounts and sync.

"Push" is actually more efficient than pull.  With "push" your phone doesn't need to connect to the mail server every once in a while.  Instead, the server sends a signal to the phone telling it whenever new mail is available.
If you are using the Gmail app for accessing your Gmail account, you are already using push and no extra settings are necessary.  For other services you will need to go to each app that access them (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and go into options to find settings for "refresh interval."  Most apps allow you to customize this setting, and allow for a "Manual" option, thus disabling automatic refresh.

TQ Chahk. I did not realise this so may not stop the updates completely. However, because the WIFI won't stay put, keeps cutting out, I have ended up using 80% of my monthly quota in a week :( x

Push may be a lot less inefficient than polling. Many IMAP servers send a periodic keep-alive message during IDLE, such as "* OK Still Here". This message may be sent once every two minutes or even every minute. That message will keep the phone radio on at full power for 17 seconds. When polling, on the other hand, the phone takes the initiative of contacting the server, and all sync adapters on the phone will do that at the same time, thereby keeping the radio on for less time and saving battery.

For most apps, you'll need to go into each individual app and change their sync settings.
For example for Facebook, open the facebook app, press Back to get off the News Feed page and onto the screen with all the icons, then press Menu, press Settings and change the Refresh Interval.


text:
How do I upload videos and tag photos using Facebook for Android?
How do you upload a video to Facebook from the Droid and how do you tag photos from your phone on Facebook?

You can't do either using the official Facebook for Android app.  You have to do it through the website (presumably the full non-mobile site; there's a "Full Site" link at the bottom of the mobile version).


text:
Share PC network with phone when connected with USB

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

So, I know about tethering where I can share the mobile network with my PC.
I'm in the reverse situation - no mobile network and no wireless.
But my PC has a network connection. Can I share that with the android phone when the phone is conencted to the PC through the USB cable ?


text:
How can I zoom without multitouch in Adobe PDF Reader?
How can zoom in Adobe PDF Reader without using multitouch? I can double-tap to zoom but it is just one level of zoom. How can I zoom more?

You can only zoom without multitouch in Reflow Text mode, sadly.  Menu -> View Mode -> Reflow Text and then hit the T+ button that pops up when you tap the screen.

My PDF is image based :(

These are some alternate applications for that purpose
Beam Reader
RepliGo Reader


text:
SMS backup in Android

Possible Duplicate:
How do I backup and restore SMS Messages?

How can I make a backup of SMS messages to the SD card in Android 2.2?


text:
What to do with 'duplicate' apps? (ie. HTC version and 'vanilla' version)
I was going through my app list today when I saw:

Facebook
Facebook for HTC Sense

similarly, there are other "duplicate" apps like Peep & Twitter, Mail & Gmail, Calendar (red) & Calendar (blue).
At the moment, with an un-rooted phone I believe I can only remove the non-HTC versions. However if I root my phone, I should be able to remove the HTC versions if I want.
I was wondering though, what would happen if I remove the HTC versions of the apps? Will it mean HTC-integrated apps like friend stream will stop working?
Thanks in advance :)

You are running sense that comes with these "extra" "sense like experience" apps.
You are right, you cannot remove them by normal means. If you go to manage applications and select each htc app (Peep, facebook for htc sense) you will not be given the option to uninstall them or delete them.
If you do root your phone, you will be able to uninstall them via either adb or flashing some zips. You won't be able to just uninstall them the normal way once rooted.
Removing peep can possibly disrupt some htc widgets but you can still access twitter via the twitter app or other apps such as plume, tweetdeck etc.
Same thing for facebook/facebook for htc sense.
Friend stream is another htc app that integrates other social apps. Users report different compatibility issues between Friend stream and versions of the social apps. It does allow login with any version of facebook/twitter/flickr.

so just to clarify, so it is still possible for some HTC apps to work even after removing the htc sense versions and leaving the 'normal' versions of the apps?

No the HTC versions won't work with the non-HTC versions of the apps.


text:
How to download unsupported files from the default browser?
When I try to download an SVG through the default browser (eg, by clicking on the image on a Wikipedia illustration - despite the .svg extension, that page is actually showing a PNG preview), the 'Downloads' says, 'Cannot download. The content is not supported on the phone'.
I tried installing a SVG editor, thinking then the phone would figure out I could view SVGs, but no luck.
[ETA: Is it a mistake by this program that it hasn't registered itself on my phone as a .svg handler?]
Luckily Firefox displays SVGs natively, but still, there should be a way to download files even if the phone "thinks" it can't display it! Any ideas?
Running Froyo on Samsung Galaxy S.

related: https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/6984/how-to-download-files-from-the-web-in-the-android-browser

Download Crutch registers itself as a handler for all files, letting you download any file type.  Download it on a PC and save to your SD card, then install from your phone.  Third-party sources must be enabled in Settings -> Applications.

Hm, do you know why it's not in the Market? Seems a bit weird.

@pfctdayelise I'm not sure.

Some file managers such as "Astro" will optionally register themselves to handle arbitrary files for the web browser - but there may (still?) be a warning about this breaking attachment preview in gmail.
There there's always the copy the url to clipboard, open a terminal, and paste it into wget, perhaps inside single quotes...

The stock browser on Android gingerbread, Ice cream Sandwish (and possibly other versions) has this limitation (see resource download_not_acceptable).
It is possible to download more file types with a an alternative browser (ex: Opera mobile) or a download manager.


text:
Linux program to transfer file from/to an android device?
Do you know if there is a linux program (possibly nautilus plugin) to transfer file from/to an android device? What is in my mind is a program which does "adb push", "adb pull", and "adb shell ls" in the background and has a GUI.
Thanks,

There's QtADB which uses adb.
You can also install an SSH or ftp server on the phone and then use Nautilus with ssh://ip-or-name-of-your-phone/ or ftp://ip-or-name-of-your-phone/ URLs (you can create bookmarks in Nautilus). The cool thing about a standard SSH or ftp server on your phone is that you don't have to install anything special on the computer.
I use QuickSSHd on the phone, but there are also other SSH servers available (search the market, please).
Ftp servers I know are SwiFTP and FTPServer. I didn't test these with Nautilus yet, but they should work.

A++ to QtADB. It's very nice.

If you install Eclipse with the Android SDK there is a perspective called DDMS that includes a file explorer. You can easily copy files from/to the device with this tool, which uses adb push/pull in background.
Another way is to simply unmount the SD card from the phone and use it as a mass storage. But in this mode you can access only the SD card and the debug mode must be disabled which can be annoying if you need the device to stay in debug mode for development.

Disabling debug mode is not necessary on some (most?) phones.

Ok I thought that only one of these two options could be used at once but you are right, SD mass storage and debug mode can be used at the same time

You can get such an interface with Emacs TRAMP and tramp-adb.el.

The best solution for integration into Nautilus is nowadays adfs-rootless, as suggested at Software Recommendations.


text:
What does "NFC Connectivity (Optional)" mean for the Samsung I9100 Galaxy S II?
I'm considering to buy a Samsung I9100 Galaxy S II. In the specs, I've read "NFC Connectivity (Optional)". What does that mean?
It seems that the first batch of phones won't have an NFC chip. Is it possible to retrofit one or will have I have to buy a new phone for NFC?

I haven't look into it, but I would assume there are two different chipsets.  If that's the case you'd probably be out of luck with the NFC-less version.

Being able to retrofit any hardware to a modern mobile phone seems extremely unlikely.

So? The Palm had a slot where you could add a wifi card. Almost all smartphones have slots for microSDHC cards.

It means some models have the NFC chip, and some don't. From what I understand, at the moment, only the model released in South Korea has the NFC chip. My model (from the UK) doesn't have it.
Though I've been following SGS2 news, I haven't read anything about the possibility of retrofitting a chip later - either you have it or you don't.

+1 Thanks. Obviously not what I wanted to hear but at least an answer :-)


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How can I clear out unneeded files - like cache, tmp et al?
Are there any Bleachbit like software for Android?
Software that cleanes all the tmp, cache, unneded files..

I wouldn't assume that this community is familiar with Bleachbit. I'm not. Rather than asking for an app, you'll probably have better luck here if you ask for help solving a particular problem. It sounds like you're trying to clean out files. To what end? On what schedule? If you edit your question to make it clear what you're trying to do, I'm sure the community can help.

This app cleaners a lot of the cache http://www.appbrain.com/app/android-assistant(14-features)/com.advancedprocessmanager# although doesn't automatically detected unneeded files it will let you delete them manually.

As far as I can tell, Android doesn't keep around a lot of cached files for the OS.  Your phone's recovery mode should also have a "Clear cache" option that would do the trick, and you can clear individual app caches from Settings -> Applications -> Manage applications.

Titanium Backup has an option to look for dalvik-cache that is not needed, but only the paid version cleans it up. Instead, you can use Ghost-commander, in root mode go to /data/dalvik-cache, select remount command, and select and delete all you want in that directory, restart device and it will rebuild the cache, and use up less memory.
For application cache and data, you can go to settings, applications, and sort by size to see what is taking the most space, clear its cache, uninstall, etc.


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Lock widgets in place
Is there any way to lock widgets in place so that a long-tap won't make them move?

Hmm, you'd probably need a home screen/launcher that directly supports this.

Yup - ADW Launcher has an option to LOCK DESKTOP which doesn't allow any changes to be made to the shortcuts or widgets.


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Droid X - is Blur home running when you use Launcher Pro?
Based on the process list in ATK, it appears that Blur home (including the widgets) are loaded and running - and can't be turned off in any way - when you are using Launcher Pro as your home replacement.

Is this an accurate observation?
Is there a way to stop any of the Blur widget processes from starting (rooted but standard ROM) completely? Just to clarify, "replace with Blur-less ROM" is not a satisfactory answer, since Cyanogen doesn't run on DroidX due to locked bootloader.

Yes, that's an accurate observation.
I don't have a Motorola phone myself, but from what I understand Blur is embedded pretty tightly into the ROM.  Trying to remove it would be painful at best, and probably just cause your phone to start crashing.  I'd recommend flashing a custom ROM that either never had Blur (e.g. something built largely from the AOSP like CyanogenMOD) or a heavily customized version of your ROM that has had Blur thoroughly rooted out and replaced with stock apps.

there don't appear to be any fully stable/functional DroidX ROMs at first glance. CyanogenMOD is explicitly out of the question due to X's locked bootloader

also, I didn't ask about removing Blur. I asked about stopping (permanently) system processes that are specifically related to Blur widgets (like com.motorola.blur.weather/...news etc...

Liberty is pretty nice for the Droid X and the newer GB versions seem to allow you to pick and choose if you want Blur available (I haven't checked the ATK though).

@DVK You can't just stop it, that's the point. It either has to run or to be removed and replaced.


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Why is my Xoom showing up as a Windows Portable Device?
I have connected my Xoom to a Windows XP64 machine, and it shows up in the device manager as a Windows Portable Device.  However, it does not show up in My Computer as a Windows Portable Device as the Motorolla site says it will.
I'm unable to access the files on the Xoom, although the device shows up in Windows Media Player as a device I can sync.  However, it tries to convert files to fit onto the tablet rather than just copy the files over like I'd like to do.
Is this how this device is supposed to work, or is there something going wrong with my PC?

The whole USB mass storage mounting paradigm was problematic; it seems the replacement idea hasn't been fully worked out yet...   If you have the SDK you can adb push files; if you are on the same wifi as the pc you could look into using something like FTP.

What version of Windows Media Player do you have? I think some people have been reporting that upgrading to WMP 11 helps if you aren't on it already. XP-64 is also kind of notorious for driver issues/quirks, though...

Also, some devices show up as Mass Storage devices, only when USB Debugging option is turned OFF. See if that helps.


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News & Weather Widget Not Updating
I have a news & weather widget on my Nexus S home screen, set to show the weather for my current location. In its settings, I have it set to update once an hour along with automatic location tracking. Neither of these things work anymore since about a month ago (possibly the 2.3.4 update?). I have background data enabled, sync enabled, and I don't have any battery saver style programs.

I solved this myself after trying a few things. I deleted the News & Weather app's data by going to Settings>Applications>Manage Applications>All, Tapping "News & Weather", and then "Clear Data". I needed to delete and re-add the widget and set my refresh settings again, but now it works.

worked for me too

Did not work for me...

All you have to do is free up your internal memory. Many apps stop working if your internal memory is near full or has reached a certain storage limit. Move vidoes and apps go your sd card and it will start working fine


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Connect XOOM to internet using a USB UMTS Stick
I have bought a XOOM WiFI, and would like to know if it would be possible to connect it to internet using an external USB UMTS Stick (Huawei E122 HSPA USB Stick). I am aware this is not supported out of the box, I would like to know what would entail trying to connect it to a USB key which by default comes with drivers for desktop operating systems.

I assume USB key = USB WiFi connector? (I'm just not familiar with that usage).

I updated the question, I'm talking about a HSPA USB stick, one that uses the mobile phone network to connect to the internet

If you mean a USB ethernet adapter, then if you have one that has [fully open source] drivers in the mainline linux kernel, it may be as simple as recompiling the kernel for your xoom, installing it, and getting one of the USB otg adapter cables people have been using to read usb memory sticks on xooms.  Fortunately the xoom seems more open to modified kernels than their phones.
Once it is available in the kernel, you may also need to figure out how to tell android to use that network interface - notice there's no ifconfig binary (though people have made their own).  You might check with the android beagle board and android x86 projects to see how they initialize ethernet adapaters.

Hi Chris, thanks for your answer. Unluckily I'm not talking about a ethernet adapter, please look at the updated question.

Actually that would be the same process, if you can get an open source linux kernel driver for the stick (ie, to use it on an x86 pc) you should be able to build that for android just as for a wired ethernet adapter.  Binary blobs to download to the stick are ok (well, controversial, but not a cross compile issue) but binary only kernel modules will not work unless the manufacturer provides an android-compatible arm version.

I don't think there is one available, I never developed a driver myself and I guess reverse engineering it from a closed source one would not be straightforward. As I said above the stick I'm talking about is a Huawei E122.

Well, I wouldn't buy one to use it with an android tablet; but if you already have it, don't give up yet.  First it seems that the USB interface just works as a normal USB-serial converter (so the kernel part should be easy), and the hard part is userspace configuration.  Here's a report from someone claiming to have had made it work on a gentoo linux box: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-840212-start-0.html   It might be worth actually making mini/liveCD gentoo install and repeating his process on a desktop before trying to do it on the tablet.

As of right now, I'm going to say you can't do this. Android 3.1 just added USB host support, so it is technically possible, though someone would need to build drivers or an application to take advantage of it.

Thank you very much for the links, the XOOM would be my first android device therefore I'm totally new to all this. This would be technically possible then? And it would entail writing a driver for the USB stick using the Android SDK? The USB stick I'm talking about is Huawei E122, by the way.


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Is it possible to display nicknames in the contact list?
Is it possible to use nicknames, instead of first+last names, as the contact's display name in the contact list and/or the incoming/outgoing call view?
Device is Samsung Galaxy S 2.
Edit: to be clear, I wouldn't mind installing an alternative contacts app, if there's no other way to do this with the default one.

What device do you have?

@Matthew Samsung Galaxy S 2. Didn't think that it mattered, but if it does please add it as a tag (I can't, rep's too low).

More important is that the S2 has TouchWiz, which has a modified Contacts app.

With my Samsung Galaxy 5 I can add an alias to a contact, and it will be shown in the list with that nickname as long as it has no first nor last name... I'm afraid it's not a good solution...

It is not possible with the default app for contacts. Try Go Contacts which is a rich app on displaying contacts.
Although the feature you are looking for is available on the default contact display of the MIUI ROM. If you have rooted your phone, consider installing MIUI.

I've tried Go Contacts but saw no option there to display nicknames...

The link to Go Contacts is broken. It appears that the app is been discontinued.

@PhoneixS Makes sense, this post is 12 years old!

In my case I decided to include nicknames in FirstName field, in format like this (without square brackets):
[Firstname] ([Nickname]) [Lastname]

With Go Contacts installed (it's free) you can find a contact by any match of firstname, lastname or nickname.

Actually the TouchWiz contacts application already allows me to find contacts by nickname, it just doesn't display it, which is the problem.

I know, but this advice is primarily about contact naming, and 'Go Contacts' - is just an example of usage.

Use DW Contacts & Phone Dialer, it allows displaying by Nickname, however SMS app will still display full name.

Would you mind explaining how? I was able to sort by nickname, but was not able to see it in the list...

Yes, you can create a program for that. This is a very hacky approach - Use ContentProvider to swap first+last names with nick names. In that manner you won't lose anything.


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Is my ext3 sd partitioning correct?
I've read a bit here on Android Enthusiasts and I've been able to partition my sdcard.
A partition FAT32 and another one ext3, using the AmonRa Recovery for Acer Liquid Metal.
Everything looks fine and if I start titanium backup I see on overview screen:

Internal: 193 mb (60.2 mb free).
  SD card: 6.87 GB (520 mb free).
  SD card (a2sd): 958 MB (958 MB free)

So it looks like I'm not using that partition, right?
I've tried moving application with app2sd pro and titanium backup to sd card but the ext3 partition does not get filled.
What's wrong?

You would need a custom ROM that supports moving apps to the Ext3 partition.  I would recommend searching the development section of xda-developers forums for your handset for such a ROM.
If a ROM does not support apps2ext natively, you can try your luck with a script (example for HTC Dream/Magic here) that can be installed on top of another ROM.
[Edit]: just adding stuff from my comments to the answer.
If you are on Android version 2.2 and above, you can use the built-in "Apps-to-SD" functionality to move apps to SD Card.  Go to Menu -> Settings -> Applications -> Manage applications then tap on any app and under the "Storage" section tap the "Move to SD" button.  After a few seconds you will see the button's name change to "Move to Phone" and size of the app decrease significantly.
This method is not without drawbacks.  First off, an app needs to be explicitly coded to support this functionality.  Second, widgets and apps that run as a service (e-mail, virtual keyboards, weather notifications, etc.) don't work when moved to SD, and must reside on the phone's internal memory.  Furthermore, not the entire app moves to the SD Card.  A part of it stays on the phone, along with its cache and data/settings.  If you have a phone with a small amount of internal app storage, using the built-in Apps-to-SD will just prolong the inevitable "out of memory" errors.
The Apps2ext scripts resolve most of these shortcomings.  It "fools" the phone into thinking that the Ext2/3/4 partition is part of the phone's internal memory.  This means that widgets and services will work just fine with this method. Also, since you can make your partition as large as you wish (recommended not to exceed 2GB), the space issues disappear.  The scripts also provide options for moving caches and data to the Ext partition in order to free up even more internal memory.
The drawback of the Apps2ext method is that it's well, a hack.  First off, your phone needs to be rooted.  Second, you will no longer be able to un-mount and remove the SD Card from the phone, since ALL of the apps (including system ones) reside on the Ext partition. Third, you are putting a lot more strain on the SD Card from increased writing, which may shorten its lifespan. Finally, as with any hack it may make your phone less stable.

Thank you, mate!
I will try to make and ext2 partition and get back to give you correct answer.
I just don't understand what's the point to use ext instead of standard fat32...

I think you misunderstood me.  Simply creating a partition does not automatically mean that your phone can use it to store apps.  Android OS needs to be modified to support moving apps to Ext2/3/4 partition.  This was a very useful hack pre-Froyo (Android 2.2) when apps could only be stored on phone's internal memory.  The script I was talking about basically "fools" the phone into thinking that the Ext partition is part of the internal memory.  In Android 2.2 and above, Google implemented Apps-to-SD functionality that uses Fat32 partition, so this hack is not really necessary anymore.

In the end I've just wasted time partitioning? O_O

Well, it depends. Android's Apps2SD solution is not perfect. The biggest drawback is that widgets and apps that run as services don't work if you move them to SD Card (Fat32 partition), so developers of these apps don't allow moving them to SD card to begin with. Also, space is still being taken up by apps that were moved to SD (cache, dalvik-cache, data/settings) so it's still possible to fill up the phone's internal memory. With aps2ext hacks, the entire app resides on the Ext partition, and there are options to move caches and data as well.

You can also opt for an easier way as described in this answer, if all you're looking for, is to shift apps from your phone's internal memory to SD Card.
A free app called Link2SD will help in this case. It has a decent GUI and makes it easier to move apps between SD Card and internal memory - also fixes the market links so that updates from the market are automatically moved to SD Card if the app was previously on SD Card.

Is there any kind of difference storing apps on the exy2 with link2sd and storing apps on fat32 with standard froyo?

You can use FAT with Link2SD too.

So.... What's the point of having ext2? O_O

If you're on a Windows machine, and insert said partitioned card into a reader, I don't think the ext partitions will be shown. That's the caveat. ExtFS is faster and less prone to fragmentation, IIRC as compared to FAT.

@Pitto: ext2/3/4 are Linux's native file system (or rather, they're the most widely used file system in Linux). Many manufacturer ships SD Card in FAT for since Windows cannot read ext3 without extra software. For internal memory, there are more variability; some phone ships with ext3 while others with YAFFS/YAFF2. The advantage of using ext3 is Android can put permissions on ext3 partition (apk/data stored in FAT partition is read- and writable by every app), is more resistant against file corruptions, and some says it is faster. FAT is inherently insecure for storing apps.

@Pitto, @Lie Ryan is absolutely correct. In fact, Froyo's Apps-to-SD method basically for each app that you move is setting aside a tiny virtual "drive" on the Fat32 partition and mounting it in a secure manner.  The article here explain all the details: http://ydal.de/android-2-2-froyo-apps-to-sd/

Please, you experts: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/14696/link2sd-boot-loop-at-reboot

No matter what you try, you are basically stuck with the limitations of your phone. There are other procedures on Android forums to force apps that usually can not be put on your sd card therefore freeing up more internal memory. I only have 200mb of internal memory, over 100 apps and still have 105mb of internal memory. I have room for more apps than I will ever need. Again, you do not have to root your phone, as some you can not due to upgrades in the OS like mine, but there are other workarounds. Good luck !


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Where are my photos saved?
I want to categorize/reorganize the photos in my gallery.  I feel like I've been all over the place in ASTRO, looking them, but I can't seem to find them.  I see my downloads, and some other photo folders I've moved stuff to while plugged in to my computer, but not the photos I've taken with the camera.
I've checked /mnt/sdcard/dcim, but all it has are three directories: Camera (empty), Icons (empty) and .thumbnails (full of cryptic cache files).  Same story at /sdcard/dcim (I think those two are symlinked).
Where are my photos?
If it makes a difference, I'm on an HTC Incredible.
edit
In my camera settings, it is set to save photos to the phone's memory, not my sd card.

Aha, found them!
/emmc/DCIM
Then most of them are in the 100MEDIA sub directory.

Your photos should be in the DCIM folder.  I have an HTC EVo and all photos from my camera are in /sdcard/DCIM/100MEDIA/.  I doubt this would help but maybe you should try another file manager.
Try taking a photo and then go to your DCIM directory to see if any new folders or images are there.
It looks like you solved your issue!  Just so others have a method to help themselves if they get stuck i'm adding this to my answer:
If you can view any photos in HTC photo app you can long press on the photo and select the Details option.  This should provide you with a File path

No luck.  Same as /mnt/sdcard/dcim.  I think the two are symlinked.

Yeah i figured as much but I thought it was worth a shot. Question: when you take a photo can you see it when you select the photo button next to the shutter button?

See the bottom part of my revised answer - that might help.


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Low disk storage Space
I have not added applications to my phone.  I have actually been deleting applications from my phone because it will tell me I have low disk storage space.  Sometimes it goes away, but will come back at another time when I still have not added any applications from the market.  I'm not sure how to keep it from telling me this...

I have the same problem. It's getting ridiculous: I have to re-install Android every month.

Cache from installed apps also resides on the phone's internal memory, and if not cleared in a while can grow large enough to fill it up.  Go to Menu -> Settings -> Applications -> Manage applications -> Menu -> Sort by size.  Then tap on the largest apps and tap on the Clear Cache button.  GMail, Browser and Maps are known space hogs.
You can try various apps that clear cache with one click.  For example, aCCleaner or CacheMate.  Keep in mind that some of these apps require root.


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Sidekick 4g media volume doesn't save
Just recently got myself a t mobile sidekick 4g. I am loving it so far except for a few quirks. This device doesn't seem to remeber what volume I set for media playback. Since I use my phone to play music or podcasts while I drive this means every time I get back into my car I half to turn the volume back up. Is there someway to make this setting behave like stock Android?

For now I am using Tasker to solve this problem. Just set headset plugged as the context, and make the task set media volume to where I want it. If someone finds a better solution and posts here I will accept it as answer.
Note The market version of Tasker was force closing on my Sidekick. I emailed the developer and he got it fixed. Look for apk version 1.1b4 or above and it should work on Sidekick. This update will get pushed to the market sometime I am sure (or maybe it already has been)


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How can I live without a trackball?
I've been using a Nexus One for the past year and half and am very happy with it as a phone.  I am not, however, happy with my carrier and so will be trading up very soon.  Amongst the current crop of 4G phones, the Nexus S has caught my attention, largely due to its similarity to the Nexus One.
One major difference between the two has me concerned, however — I absolutely love the trackball on my N1 and am having trouble picturing how I'll be able to use a phone as effectively without one.  My main concerns are:

Text entry.  I tend to edit my emails / text messages / etc. as I write them by jumping back and forth frequently.  The trackball makes this very easy to do with great precision.
Games.  I play a number of puzzle games (Shortyz, Vexed Pro, Andoku, etc.) which all benefit greatly from the "scroll-and-click" interface of the trackball.

Does the Nexus S (or Gingerbread) offer anything to fill the holes left by the removal of the trackball?  I've seen mention of a "brand new text-selection paradigm" introduced in Gingerbread, but haven't the faintest idea what that's in reference to.
I had been hoping for something like arrow keys on the soft keyboard, but if a setting for them exists, I'm not able to find it.

just breathe and you'll live...

@Joset: breathing is necessary, but is not sufficient to sustain living. To live, you also need water, food, and a phone with a trackball. Some politicians would also want to include housing, sanitation, education, and/or healthcare, but they were not basic needs in any sense since you can sustain life without all those luxuries; however it is not possible to live without air, food, water, and a phone with a trackball; they are the only 4 basic needs of humanity.

@Lie I'd add heat and shelter, and unlimited internet access to that list and I think you're there.

I think people are taking @Joset's comment too seriously and/or missing the point.

@Joset — But this is serious! :-D

Keyboards like Smart Keyboard and Better Keyboard (*Tap ?123 and then <> key to access) do indeed have arrow keys that can appear below the normal onscreen keyboard or as a separate keyboard containing arrow keys alone.
The caveat being, the onscreen keyboard will use up some of your screen real-estate while in use.
As regards games, most non-HTC Android devices are without trackpads and D-pads too (unfortunately!), so most game devs would bear that in mind. I don't know if the onscreen keyboard would work in the games you play, however.

I'll definitely give both of those keyboards a look, thanks!

I'm still playing around with it, but Smart Keyboard is just impressing the heck out of me, for more reasons than I can get into in a comment.  I suspect they're going to walk away with three of my dollars soon.  :-)

I'll be honest it's probably not something you'll miss at all after a few weeks. My previous Android phone was an HTC Magic, apart from text selection I found the trackball pretty useless on that. Since upgrading to a Galaxy S, that has no trackball/pad/d-pad at all, I can honestly say that I haven't needed one since about the first week, I think I've found two games total that needed a trackball, and they had so many "needs a trackball, doesn't work on my phone" type one-star reviews, that the devs must have changed them by now.
Gingerbread has a text selection feature based on tapping in the text and dragging your finger that works very well, Samsung's Touchwiz interface has had an incredibly similar interface for text selection since Eclair (I think) and that works well.

And on the games note, with so many developers releasing their games on both Android and iOS these days, there's going to be less and less of them making any use of the trackball at all. As the iPhone doesn't have a trackball and it's easier for them to use a similar control scheme on both platforms, makes sense for them to use a totally touch/accelerometer/gyro/compass based interface.

Shoot, I was hoping the hubbub was about something more impressive than the new text selection.  I have enormous fingers; in a quick test, it took me four tries to successfully place the insertion point between a pair of "t"s.  :-/

@Ben I had that problem on and off, until I realised I was really pressing down on the screen. Being a capacitive screen, it only needs the lightest of brushes of your finger, and the lighter you press the smaller and more accurate your touch-point is. Also once you've put the cursor in roughly right the right place you should be able to drag it the few characters to the left or right as needed fairly easily.


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What can cause a Droid Incredible to stop connecting to a PC via USB?
When I connect my phone to my laptop via USB, it is able to charge, but I am not able to mount it as a drive. Neither my computer nor my phone recognize that there is a device plugged in. This happened within the past few days, and I don't think that I changed anything on either side.
I already checked the settings and USB debugging is on, USB debugging notify is on, and Stay awake is on in the Development settings menu. I also tried rebooting both devices to see if that would fix it, but it hasn't.
My phone is a Droid Incredible running CM7.0.3. My laptop is running Windows 7.

Try changing usb cable. Bad cables can cause this (at least I had this problem once, which went away simply by using another cable).

Unfortunately, I only own the one cable. I'll borrow a friend's cable later and check. I hope it's this simple.

This turned out to be it. However, I had to try about 3 USB cables before I found out. Annoying...

It could also be that Windows 7 or the BIOS disabled that USB port...possibly due to something power related.  Have you switched the USB port you're plugged into? Possibly try switching to another USB port.

It's also possible that you've damaged some of the pins on the device's micro USB connector. If connecting it to another computer with another cable doesn't works I could recommend you to contact your dealer for repair :)

That's a good call, too. However, I tried multiple combinations of cords and computers. It's definitely my cord either not supporting data or being damaged.

As another possibility (although you mention that you did not change anything on the PC): I had a similar problem once when I still had my PALM desktop software (and synchronization software) installed on my PC.
After a log of searching I found out that the PALM sync software used the COMM4 port on my PC.
For some reason, the USB connection between my Galaxy S and my Windows 7 PC used the same port.
Once I uninstalled the PALM software, the USB connection worked flawlessly.
Maybe more technical people at this forum can explain why, but that's what I found out.


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No touchscreen response when charging
I have a new HTC Desire S in the UK unlocked from Amazon running Android 2.3.3 and HTC Sense 2.1.
When I charge the phone the touchscreen is non responsive. I have tried changing Settings > Applications > Development > Stay Awake (screen will never sleep whilst charging) but this makes no difference.
The touch screen does not respond, whether the phone is dark, lit up looking for my lock pattern, or unlocked and on the home page.
If it is charging and I press the power button the screen will wake up, but still the touchscreen is disabled completely.
Hopefully I have been clear that this is not solved by the "stay awake" function (seen elsewhere).
So, in summary, when charging the touchscreen is completely disabled and changing the "stay awake" checkbox makes no difference.
Any other ideas welcome.
THANKS IN ADVANCE.

There have been occasional reports of trouble like that on assorted devices, more typical using mains chargers than PCs - presumably electrical noise interfering with the touchscreen.  Out of curiosity, you might try the supplied mains charger or another PC.  And one more test before you give up - if you hold the phone in your other hand, does it work?  Some capacitive touchscreens seem to need a hand or something conductive behind the phone before they will reliably register touches on the front.

I've also run into this with one particular charger.  I'd try a different charging method to see if that's it.

Thanks for the advice on switching around the charging connection as a test. Should have thought of that test. The stock HTC wall plug and connection to a PC work fine. However, I bought a second charger with a cradle for a spare battery - this causes the lock out on the screen. I won't connect it to my phone anymore for fear of damage.

related: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/12985/touch-input-does-not-work-right-when-phone-is-plugged-in/13176

If you have a warranty I would use it as this sounds like malfunctioning hardware, not a software problem.


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Trying to uninstall a keyboard, 'uninstall' grayed out, no root
I'm trying to uninstall PDAC Multilinugal keyboard and its language packs. The uninstall button on the app is grayed out, and I don't yet have root - is it possible to remove it without root access?

What phone do you have?  Did it come pre-installed?

Looks like the PDAC multilingual keyboard comes pre-installed on a lot of HTC devices.

@Matthew - HTC Desire.

Most pre-installed keyboards are system apps.  System apps can't be uninstalled without root access.

Damn. The thing is I wouldn't have minded it staying, the problem is it keeps overriding Swype as the default keyboard. Looks like I have to root it then.


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Use something other than finger that can be sensed by a capacitive touch screen
I have some crazy ideas about some stuff lately but to make it tangible I need a bit more information over the capacitive touch screens.
Is there a way to create an object that can be sensed by a capacitive touch screen without the touch of the human skin?
I mean, imagine a tiny piece of something that you can just lay on the screen and the screen thinks is a finger or a stylus.
I've heard about the stylus that can be sensed, but I think that the skin has to be touching it in order to work.. is it true? Can I maybe create something out of ordinary house stuff that can do this, without the need of the skin to touch it?
Ahh, and by the way, it need to be capacitive because multi-touch is needed.
Thank you all and best regards!

I know this isn't what your looking for, but I found (by accident) that a banana (with the peel on) is recognized. :)

Voted to close since this is only tangentially related to Android (it equally applies to Windows Phone 7 devices with such screens, for example).  It's more of a physics question, though possibly too basic for the Physics SE?

I'd hate to see a question of such obvious relevance to using android devices closed!  Where I live, we wear gloves part of the year - having to decide between cold hands or seeing what is going on in the world, or carrying around yet another overpriced, easily lost object such as a purchased stylus is not a great set of choices.

@Chris capacitive touch screen compatible glove reviews: http://www.brighthub.com/mobile/mobile-accessories/articles/90129.aspx ;)

Rumor says, the South Koreans (which also happens to be Samsung's home country) used sausages stylus so they don't need to put off their gloves in the freezing winter.

Yes, capacitive screens just need something that alters their capacitance: something conductive or a dielectric.
As per usual, Wikipedia has more information.

Here's a video on how to create a capacitive stylus for free (as long as you have an anti-static bag laying around).
From the page:

In this video we show you how to create a free capacitive touch screen stylus out of a common piece of antistatic film. As many people know capacitive touch screens use an electrical impulse created by the operator's body to register a touch point on the screen. The only problem with this is that if you are wearing gloves or need to make a precise touch point, capacitive screens do not work well. Most likely many if not all of our tech-savvy readers have a piece of antistatic film lying around. Simply cut the film to the desired length, roll it up, and (if you want) attach a piece of tape to hold it in place.

I'm finding the rolled up film does not work very well - it seems the film really need to be parallel to the screen, which is unfortunate as it makes it hard to get a smaller-than-pinky-finger point.  The commercial stylus I saw was also quite fat.  Still thinking...

I tried various metal (pins, tubes and foil) and plastic (antistatic bags and foam). I found nothing that was satisfactory. You have some level of control but it is not the same as your bare finger. My advice would be to keep it metal and keep it short. Not all screens are equally sensitive so you have to play around.
I have not tried a commercial stylus.