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MMS images showing up as videos
For some reason when receiving pictures from people with iPhones, they sometimes show up as a video.  The video is usually 20 seconds long with the first half blank (sometimes there is text depending on how the person sent the message) and the second half contains the picture (though it is really small).  Any idea what is going on here?  Googling didn't really turn up anything so I suspect this is only happening with the AT&T version of the Nexus One with MMS sent from AT&T iPhones or something.  This has happened since 2.1-update1 when I first got the phone and still happens now (running 2.3.4 stock Google OS, unrooted).
OK, I did find some other people with similar issues:
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/android/thread?tid=0e35a68a13fb466f&hl=en
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/android/thread?tid=1b552b9e6595a79d&hl=en
Does anyone know of a way to workaround this?  It's really quite annoying.  Even a bug number in Google's issue tracking system would at least give me some hope that this would get fixed.

This happens for me with images sent from an iPhone 4 on Verizon to a Droid Charge on Verizon. So this case can't be blamed on the network. Its really annoying though!

This might have something to do with a feature of MMS called Content adaptation. Your operator's MMSC (Multimedia Messaging Service Center) determines if the data sent is in a format supported by your handset, and if not, transcodes it into another format. This can cause some problems between different devices and operators. For example, my Android receives single images from other Android phones as 10 second videos where 1st half is the image and 2nd half is the message.
At least here in Finland, the behaviour I described is pretty standard and has happened since the days MMS was made available and people are used to it (as far as I know). Don't know about AT&T, but I'd suspect there won't be any changes in the near future.

I see.  So this is really AT&T being stupid thinking they need to modify the format of MMS because they don't think the receiving phone can support it?  They probably just send it as-is when they know the receiving phone is an iPhone.  Damn you AT&T!

I found on another site that if you save it and view it from your downloads folder, it displays as a normal photo.


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Sending notifications from the desktop to an android device
I'd like to be able to be able to send alert from my PC to my phone, preferably via wifi.
The only related app I found was Android Notifier, but it does the other way: android to PC.

You should check out Google's Cloud To Device Messaging (C2DM) framework. If you just want to send stuff from your browser to your phone try Chrome to Phone (it's a kind of reference implementation of the C2DM framework).
Good luck!

Thanks, I'll check it out. It seems to be the right direction toward what I need. I had hoped there was already a simple app/command line that implements it as I need it not as a feature inside a bigger mobile app I'm building, but as the app itself.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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How to select menu item in Android System Recovery? LG Optimus One P500
I'm started my LG Optimus One in System Recovery Mode. Vol Up/Vol Down buttons works - moving up/down through the menu. But i can't start menu item, for example 'reboot system now', or 'apply sdcard:update.zip'.

What type of System Recovery do you have? On my P500 everything is fine.
In AmonRA Recovery there are such bindings:

VolUp/VolDown - moving through menus
Back - previous menu level, cancel action
Menu - select menu item, approve action

Also I've noted that from some time back button doesn't work every time as I press it. I think it is hardware problem. Maybe I need to disassemble phone and make it maintenance.

Normally you click the Power button to select items.  That's how my Galaxy S works, anyways.
Edit: According to this, try using the Send Call button.  And End Call for cancel.  Or according to this, use the Camera button.  I guess it depends on what recovery you have installed.  Try selecting something that won't do any harm -- a further menu, for example.  Not "factory reset" :P

LG P500 has Menu, Home, Back, Search, Vol Up, Vol Down, Power buttons. I'm tried all of them :(

if you're use the same custom recovery, according to this, on P500 to select item you press Menu button.

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


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How to tether an old Android 2.1 phone with the Asus Transformer
I want to tether my Samsung Europia to my Asus Transformer so I can use my phone 3g connection.
Is this possible? The Samsung doesn't have native tethering built in.

Acutally for the samsung Europia, a free update can be downloaded via Kies to upgrade to android 2.2. This then allows you to natively turn your phone into a wifi hotspot. It's then the usual connect to wifi affair

Is your phone rooted?  If so, try using the WiFi Tether app.  You will need to download the APK and side-load it.


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How to Sort shortcuts in a folder?
I have made many folders on home screen on froyo containing shortcuts of applications.
Is there any way  I can sort those shortcuts by names?

Like all things in android, there are apps to do what the os was not equipped with. In my case I use a handy little app called simi folder widget. It allows alphabetical sorting of apps along with many other options.

Is there any app to sort default folders?


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Does LTE require a special modem from WiMAX or just a firmware upgrade?
Sprint has talks of starting LTE data, but for now all their 4g phones support WiMAX.
I am considering starting a sprint unlimited contract with the EVO 3D phone.
The phone supports WiMAX 4g, on a snapdragon msm8660 processor. I'm wondering if this phone will be able to support LTE if sprint does release it, or does LTE require a special modem?

The HTC Evo does not contain any LTE hardware, so it wont work

Even on Sprint, LTE will be supported through new devices, just like on all the other carriers. WiMAX is a different technology. Because they are both called 4G is irrelevant. HSPA+ is called 4G, too, and is also not the same as LTE (or WiMax),

Right, I get that it's a completely different protocol, I was just curious if the EVO 3d has LTE hardware, or if its CDMA or WiMax Radios can support LTE through firmware tweaks.

The technologies are on different frequencies; the filters used in the radios are all hardware and so you can't tweak it through firmware.


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How to keep my battery life?

Possible Duplicate:
What can I do to increase battery life on my Android phone?

Today I woke up after a night without charging my phone (galaxy s2). and he's dead, last night he was almost fully charged, what to check ? how can i avoid thids kind of issues?

I suggest going for Battery Monitor great app tells you exactly what is running the battery the most and then you can kill that process etc

I use JuiceDefender and JuicePlotter to conserve and monitor battery, almost doubles my battery life on Galaxy S.

Best Option: root your phone and install some sort of CPU governor/undervolted kernel.
Things to try: Set brightness to minimum possible, turn wi-fi off, turn auto sync off or to do it only every few hours, turn data off (if not in use).
ALSO: I have an HTC phone, but this may work... type in ##4636## in your dialer and call it. If it works correctly it will bring up a menu. Go into your phone information and change your preferred network type to something else (depending on what your carrier is, I use GSM Auto)


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Take a photo and add a comment to it
I'd like to take a picture of something and add some comments/notes (e.g. while shopping, take a pic of something and make a note of its price). Doesn't have to be anything fancy.
How to achieve that?

If you have a Samsung device and a stylus then this is built in.

Evernote has that capabilty as well. You take a picture and add a title and notes

People should be made aware that Evernote only provides a paltry 60MB of free uploads per month (yes, you read that right... just 60MB... not 60GB).  They have had that meager limit for many years without any increase as technology progressed.  Thus, one cannot really effectively use Evernote in this way with their free plan.

I have only used the Samsung Note (with stylus).  It has tools built in.  However, my wife used to use this before getting a Note.
ScreenMaster
Blurb from their site (and I am not associated with it)

Screen Master is a free, easy-to-use, no rooting required screenshot & photo markup tool. With Screen Master, you can capture screen by touching the floating button or shaking device, lets you take screenshot on your tablet, phone or other Android device the easy way!
Screen Master also provides a variety of annotation features such as crop, add text, pixelated image, draw arrow, rect, circle and more. Lets you easily edit and markup your screenshot and quickly share it with your friends!

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


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HTC Dream keeps on showing power options screen
I have an HTC Dream cell phone which was working fine till last night. Today morning I woke up to find that the cell phone battery had completely discharged. So, I replaced the battery with an extra one.
I powered on the cell phone and I am surprised to find the "power options" screen turn up every few seconds. Pressing any button also makes the "power options" screen turn up. I tried resetting the cell phone to factory settings. I even tried a hard reset but still this problem persists. Any idea how I could solve the problem?
Thanks in advance.

If you're running a stock ROM, I suggest you root the phone (the warranty's way gone) and upgrade it to CyanogenMod 4 (Android 1.6) or CyanogenMod 6 (Android 2.2).
Battery life is very good on 4; 6 is more recent version of Android -- however there are some additional hoops to jump through to get it installed.
The first step in most Dream rooting instructions is to downgrade it to a vulnerable version, so you will lose data stored on the phone. You might have luck with one of the "one-click root" programs but if you can't kill the "Power Options" dialog every few seconds, you may just need to flash it with the RC29 DREAIMG.NBH.

My problem got solved on its own. I dont know how but now its working fine. Still I would love to upgrade it to 1.6 or 2.2 I heard that Android 2.2 doesnt work well with the Dream phone. Its quite slow. So, I was hoping that it works well with 1.6. If you have any link which mentions the upgradation process in detail, please do let me know. Thanks for your reply.

2.2 needs some configuration but it's usable. You have to turn off a lot of fancy stuff.

Disabling fast boot may resolv the problem as it did for my brotrher

Can you please tell me how to do it? I am new to Android and dont know much about it.

just google it its that easy

I googled to find the following post: http://android-dls.com/wiki/index.php?title=Fastboot. Here it mentions that the G1 phones have the fastboot disabled by default. So, what do I do? Do you think flashing it with a new android OS will help?

"fastboot" isn't the problem here. "fastboot" refers the bootloader.


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Video player to play all files?
As VLC is not available for android, which Android player supports most video formats (and faster and lighter if possible)?
For example currently i use kascend media player, it can also play flv files (without flash player) and faster then other flv players.

I think this would be better if you were asking for support for a particular format that wasn't playable in kascend, or something.

Kascend does not play some flv files that are playable in some other players. It would be great to have an all in one media player

I have a 500 MHz phone with low memory. Only kascend has played a higher resolution flv file faster than others, but not perfectly.

VLC for Android is currently in beta testing: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-android.html

VLC Beta is also on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.videolan.vlc.betav7neon

I use QQPlayer

Mobile QQ player ... supports all the popular formats of videos
  on the market, including AVI, FLV, MP4, 3GP, MKV, MOV and etc. In
  addition, QQ Player also supports SRT, SMI plug-in subtitle and MKV
  embedded subtitle, as well as multiple audio tracks switching.

I like MoboPlayer
It seems the fastest on my Xoom, and plays back nearly anything I throw at it flawlessly.

VLC for Android is now available as beta.

Arcmedia is also a nice player. It is based on ffmpeg, so it'll play pretty much anything you throw at it.

MXPlayer
It supports most of the formats

VLC is available for Android already!
Here are some best android players for you!

If someone gave me the choice of picking just one media player to take to a deserted island, I would most definitely plonk for VideoLan’s VLC Media Player. VLC, the free media player popular for its capability to play most media formats(MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg...) While, no-one seems to know much how to import and play Blu-ray discs using VLC (even you’ve gotten rid of the copy protection and can actually make a backup!).
no worry! An approach is presented at this website.
If VLC doesn't play your blu-ray movie, we can upgrade the VLC to the latest version, install it and replay it, but it seems to be a bit complex for us. And sometimes, our Blu-ray was burned at 8X or 16X speed while the computer can only handle 2X or 4X Media. On this occasion, we'd better convert the blu-rays to videos for smoothly playback with a Blu-ray Ripper, which enables us rip and convert Blu-ray to a common video for VLC for playback effortlessly.

Seems like your talking about using VLC Player for PC, not for Android.

The best player is DICE player... you can play any format on it without your phone breaking a sweat.. My 3 years old Galaxy S is able to play 720p videos perfectly and also 1080p(though choppily). All the other players on the market failed to do that for me. The only other player that does all that was the default Galaxy S player but as I installed CyanogenMod I lost it.


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Any way to push files onto android phones?
There is any way to push files from a computer to an Android phone? Maybe to its SD card. It may work like Android Notifier, but the opposite way (PC to phone), as in Chrome-to-phone.
I looked some apps like FTP servers, web servers, but I would like something more close to "right click on file, push" than to "connect to server using a ftp client or browser, drag  or select file, and send".

Are you trying to do it over a network, or is mounting the external storage and using it as a mass storage device sufficient? That's drag and drop, and I'd wager 99% of Android devices (if not all of them) support it in some form or another. Windows even has a baked in Right Click->"Send To.." functionality if you're using that.

We prefer questions that ask about a specific problem, rather than asking for a specific app that is perceived to fix the problem. It is entirely possible that there is a non-app solution and it makes the question more universal. Future readers might have the same problem, after all.

Al Everett, done.

Dropbox and Ubuntu One has Android client.
FoxToPhone has a hidden feature to push arbitrary file from Firefox to your phone.

GTalkSMS is able to send, browse and receive files from your android phone via XMPP (gTalk). It's also a remote SMS notifier and has various other features.
Note: According to the FAQ I have to disclose that I am involved in GTalkSMS. GTalkSMS is an open source GPL licensed Android app. Everyone can contribute.

Use PushBullet
This is the best way I found to do it. It has a web interface, a chrome extension and a firefox extension. It lets you push files, notes, lists, urls and addresses. It's only limitation is filesize under 10mb.

In CyanogenMod at least, plugging a phone into your computer will make it offer to turn on USB mass storage, which exposes the SD card as writable. That's about as "drag and drop" as one can get.
Post specifics on your phone if you don't get this prompt.
Opinion: with data plans no longer being unlimited in the US, why not use a cable?

I wrote an app called Browser to Phone. My app is similar to chrometophone, but it allows you to actually download the links to your phone:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.wiirecords.chrometophone

This does look fairly relevant, but please take a look at the FAQ section on self promotion.

Awesome Drop can be used to accomplish this for smaller files. Install the app https://market.android.com/details?id=com.dashwire.drop on your computer, open their site, enter the pairing code and drop files into the browser. It is pretty slick and easy to use.
I use Dropbox for most of my needs, it doesn't sync to my phone, but works for having files I want, close at hand.

MAXS (Modular Android XMPP Suite) allows you to push files to your Android device over XMPP.
Using XMPP as transport, the "desktop app" can be every XMPP Client. Which is one of the big advantages of MAXS, as it does not need a dedicated desktop app. Although there may be one in the future.
Note: According to the FAQ I have to disclose that I am involved into MAXS. MAXS is an open source GPLv3 licensed Android app. Everyone can contribute.


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Decrypt folder, that was encrypted using EncFS, on Android
So this is my setup: I use Ubuntu (11.04, but this shouldn't matter) to encrypt my secret folder. I sync this folder using Ubuntu One (Dropbox would be possible too). Now I want to have it on my Android (not rooted) too.
But how do I decrypt it?

boxcryptor is in alpha stage now. https://market.android.com/details?id=com.boxcryptor.android

Encdroid available from Google Play Store, can do what you want with Dropbox:

Encdroid is a file manager application for Android devices to keep your files encrypted on Dropbox or the local storage of the device. It is compatible with EncFS so volumes created with Encdroid can be accessed on Windows/MacOS/Linux desktop and laptops and vice versa.

Have not tried it yet, but Cryptonite (on GitHub and Google Play; currently beta) may be an option.


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Do all Android phones have a GPS receiver?
That's pretty much it. I am developing an application which is utterly useless without receiving a GPS signal, so I was wondering if there are any phones which do not possess this feature.
Thank you

Just a clarification: Not every device with Android is a phone, and some of the low-end tablets (e.g. some Prestigio models) definitely don't have a GPS receiver.

The current Android Compatibility Definition Document says:

7.3.3. GPS
Device implementations SHOULD include a GPS receiver. If a device implementation does include a GPS receiver, it SHOULD include some form of "assisted GPS" technique to minimize GPS lock-on time.

So "SHOULD" does not mean "MUST". [Edited because I messed things up. Apps that require GPS show up in the market regardless of whether the device supports it or not.]

How do you know apps that use GPS won't show up?

Woops, maybe that's not completely correct. But the FAQ says: "[For] example, an app that manages SMS text messages would not be useful on a media player, so Android Market allows the developer to restrict that app exclusively to phone devices." So, I assumed you can do that for stuff like GPS too.

Hmm. It would make sense for them to allow you to filter by GPS-or-not.  But they didn't have filtering by device until recently, and if they're assuming everything has GPS then they might not have bothered.

I am almost positive that all Android phones will have a GPS receiver in them. Cnet reviewed the first Droid in 2009 so chances are they will all have GPS.

At least one - fly iq 431, and few cheap tablets.
here we can see that 93% of (all smartphone) owners use some geolocated stuff.
Another fact that sort "having GPS" returns 15218 from 16144 ("having touchscreen") unfortunately there is no reverse filter to see specific models, so this could be caused by not filling needed field by seller

Considering that E911 requires all cell phones to provide location information to emergency services (Wiki Link), nearly every cell phone contains a GPS receiver for E911 services.
Given that information, I'd expect there to be very few cell phones (Android or otherwise) that don't have a GPS receiver built-in.  With it already built in, and the OS already having to support it (since the phone system is simply an Android application), it'd be silly to not let other apps take advantage of it (if the user prefers).
One thing to keep in mind: GPS location is a user-controlled option in Android, so it may very well be disabled.

"nearly every cell phone contains a GPS receiver for E911 services" That is pure misinformation, plain and simple - the majority of cellphones do not contain a GPS receiver, especially not the older and/or low-end models (smartphones are a different thing altogether). The "location information" required by E911 is provided from cell phone base station identifiers, on phones lacking GPS. (What you'd expect is somewhat irrelevant to what actually exists out there)


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How to copy files from tablet to PC - Not all files show up in PC
When I connect my Xoom to my PC via USB cable I get a Xoom "Portable Media Player" showing up in my Windows Explorer.  When I browse the drive, I can only see half the folders compared to if I browse the SD card directly from within Astro file manager on the Xoom.
Why aren't all files and folders showing up?  In Android (3.2), I've tried copying a file from a "hidden" folder to a folder that I can actually see on the PC but the file does not show up.
Someone suggested it was because it didn't get mounted as "USB Mass Storage".
How can I copy the files?
(same functionality works fine from my HTC Desire)

Are the missing files actually on the external SD card, or are they in the Xoom's internal /sdcard directory?

I have not installed any external SD card, so I assume it's the internal memory.  The files can be seen in /sdcard subdirectory (as well as /mnt/sdcard).  However, not all files seen there are visible in my PC

Do those hidden folders start with a dot "."? Have you tried enabling options in windows explorer to show hidden files?

@Audrius Windows doesn't hide folders starting with a dot, they have to be marked as hidden in their properties.

Does Windows Explorer show it with a phone or PMP icon instead of a drive icon? If so I would suspect onik's answer is correct.

Windows filesystem cannot create files with dot in the beginning.. So such folders, (including .nomedia files) won't be copied over.

@Power-Inside What are you talking about? In Windows, files beginning with a dot are handled as normal files, there's nothing special about them, and they definitely can be created. Just go to any explorer window and File -> New -> Text Document and name it .test.txt. No problems.

@onik We are talking about .nomedia files here.. try to create a file/folder with the name as ".test" NOT ".test.txt". It won't work. Hence, .nomedia files cannot exist in windows filesystem.

@Power-Inside That is not a restriction of the file system, it's a restriction of Windows Explorer. Try this: Open Notepad, type something, File -> Save... and select Save as type: All files. Then enter the filename .nomedia and save. Or open a command prompt and try echo This is a dotfile example > .dotfile. How do you think most Linux-based apps would still use dot-prefix folders for their settings after being ported to Windows if NTFS wouldn't support them?

@onik  Thanks for clarifying. for a moment there i thought the file system just didnt support it because I copied a folder from my android using copy-paste and the destination didnt have the .nomedia copied over!

Try WiFi File Explorer (also available in pro version with more features). It reads your SD card just like Astro does, allows you to view it from a computer browser, and does not require root. You may be able to view your files from here, and if so, you can download them via WiFi network.
Let us know if it works! :)

Unfortunately I don't have a WiFi connection at home!

ouch :/ let Mr know if you get one then! :)

you may try install the android SDK and use adb-pull under command-line.

Sounds like bit of an overkill :)

Simple painless can be with Dropbox application where you can share files between various platforms. No need for cable just wireless access ;)

Apparently Android versions 3.1+ support MTP  for file transfers. This is a better protocol than USB Mass Storage for media files (music, photos, videos) but won't necessarily work with all files as well. Probably since this mode is meant for media transfer, the system and data folders are hidden from the user.

Strange, since the files that I'm not able to access are in fact images!

Got a Samsung Galaxy Tab a couple of days ago and it uses MTP, but I can see all the same folders on it. So I don't think it's a MTP problem anymore. At least not a general Android-MTP problem, don't know if Motorola or Samsung use modified protocol stacks.


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Is there any app which can tell which app is using internet?
I have installed lots of apps on my phone. For the last couple of weeks i am facing one issue. Even when i am not using internet infact even when i am not using my phone at all, a window pops up and says you have just downloaded ??mb of data!!! and because of this my battery is draining very fast. I have to charge it twice a day. I don't even know which app is accessing net,
I suspected the pulse feed reader and google+ for this. Uninstalled pulse reader but still there is problem. If i could got to know which app is that then i will just uninstall that.
Phone: HTC Desire S
OS: Android 2.3.3


text:
No notification from my apps
I have a strange behaviour on a HTC Desire Android 2.2 phone:
Some applications offer notifications that should appear in the notification bar and should make a sound - for example Seesmic (Twitter client) and Huddle (from Google+).
On one phone I have here for comparison that happens. Whenever I get a message on twitter or when I receive a huddle, the phone beeps and shows a little icon.
On the other identical phone, which to me seems to be identically configured neither of those applications give me a sound - although sounds are enabled in the applications.
Any suggestions where else I could have another look?
Since there is no sound from any of those apps, it seems to be a "global" problem, but I don't see where...

On the phone with no sound, do you get the icon in the notification bar?

You could try:
Settings->Sound->Notification Ringtone
It has a Silent option which might be set.


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Connecting Android to Ford Sync via Bluetooth?
I am trying to get Bluetooth audio to work with my Ford Touch. It's has worked but I can't figure out the conditions where it does.  It will pair just fine but when I try to play audio it will display a message saying it has disconnected.
I have tried doing some changes to the audio.conf as recommended on a couple of forums. But I don't see a change in behavior.
My phone is a Nexus One running CyanogenMod.

how is bluetooth audio performance with another device, like a headset?

This issue is very likely due to the way the Ford Sync system does an initial media connection to the phone. When it connects to the phone, Ford Sync appears to immediately send a "play" command (similar to what a headset play button would do) to the phone. The problem arises when you have more than one app installed that is capable of listening for these bluetooth play events. The OS gets confused and disconnects from Ford Sync.
If you have multiple media players installed (including podcast aggregators), try removing them and re-installing them one by one. Try Ford Sync after you install each one.

I had a very similar issue with CyanogenMod, I however broke my phone and got another, I was thinking it was thinking it was and HTC problem at first, but with the standard OS it is working perfectly. I have heard people could get it working by not syncing the address book, however that did not work for me.


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What's the easiest way to paste my current address or zip-code into a web field in my browser?
Many web services have you dump your zip code (e.g. radio station locators) or address (for bus directions) into some fields on a form to give you information.  Obtaining this data seems tedious (go to Google maps...current location...remember the address...type it back in) or otherwise impossible (get current zip-code while on the highway).
Is there some easy way to copy an address or zip code string to paste it later?

I'd like to see an app for that: get zip code for current GPS location.  Would be sweet.

Install Clipper. From Google Maps, share your current location & choose Clipper from the menu. Or, if you've Copy to Clipboard or AndMade Share Pro installed, you can just Copy to Clipboard (Clipper monitors clipboard). Or, if you've location in mind, you can enter it in Clipper manually.
Whenever you need to paste an address or zip code, just pull down notification to launch Clipper. From Clipper, tap desired item to copy it to clipboard. Now, don't ask how to paste. Cheers!

If it is your known home address or you have just a few you use, you could get a note widget application. You can then single click the note widget and it will copy to your clipboard to paste into wherever you wish.
Otherwise as you said you'll have to use a 3rd party app to first locate yourself. It's more the webservices fault for not binding with your phone and asking for the location, write them a strongly worded letter :-)

Try Zip Code Finder.


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How do I video chat in Google+?
Is it possible to video chat in my Google+ circles on my Droid X?

You cannot (yet) do video chat with Google+ Hangouts on a mobile device. Google has released an updated version of Google Talk that does support video chat but only on certain devices running Android 2.3.4 (Nexus One/S). I imagine this will change. Skype also released an update to their app which allows video chat, but is once again restricted to a handful of devices. Qik is the only one that I have been able to use to do Android to Android video chat, even with my non-front-facing camera on my G2. Try Qik and pester Google/Skype to support your device.

Anybody have a better answer?

Currently there is no app released from Google that will let you video chat with Google+ circles like Google+ Hangouts. You can use Google Talk video chat on Android 2.3 Gingerbread.
Edit: Vtok is an app that allows google talk video chat.

Specifically 2.3.4, though Honeycomb also has video chat. Also, the only phone which "officially" supports Talk's video chat feature is currently the Nexus S.


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How to receive data from Bluetooth OBD-II?
I am going to order ELM327 Bluetooth on-board diagnostics (OBD) II.
Does Android support Bluetooth OBD-II? Is there any way to pair and receive the data directly on Android?

More information can also be found at this related question on Mechanics.SE, OBD2 to Bluetooth adaptor for 2001 Renault

Torque (lite, pro) works with most of the ELM327 Bluetooth OBD-II devices.
Be careful though, some of the "cheap" ones don't work well with Ford vehicles.

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


text:
Voice notification management
I got a new Galaxy S 2 and played with it a little. Somehow I activated voice notification, so each SMS message I get someone talking and telling me who sent the message. Each phone call, the same.
How to control the activity of this feature?

On my Samsung device it is:

Home >> Menu >> Settings >> Voice input and output >> Text-to-speech settings >> Driving mode


text:
Gmail app Hebrew support
My Gmail app on the Galaxy S2 stock app shows Hebrew reversed and left to right. How can I fix this?

You need to look for hebfix or RTL fix.  Unfortunately, I was unable to find a direct download link.  Hope this is enough to get you started.
A good place to look would be http://iandroid.co.il or http://www.xda-developers.com/.
If you find a good link to download from, you can update my answer :)


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How can I hide some contacts from dialer?
I am playing around with my brand new Motorola Defy and trying to find a way to manage my contacts.
Of course it synced every contact in my Google account... I want to hide some of them, you know, those people you don't contact often but whose coordinates you want to keep in case you ever need to. I haven't had any luck so far.
I have 3 apps on my phone that deal with contacts :

one called Contacts that is just for managing contacts (no tabs like dial or favorites) -- you can call someone after selecting them, then selecting the phone number, then call -- in there I can select groups I want to hide but too many clicks to call someone
the dialer (my phone is in French so it's called "Appeler" = Call) with tabs : call, recent, contacts, favorites -- works as I'd want to but display all contacts with a phone number, and I haven't find a way to hide some groups (and it does display "visibility: hidden" when you select the contact)
Go contacts, that I installed in hope it would be everything I wanted, but I can't hide groups, as when I try remove a group from the app it deletes it from Google

I don't know if the 2 apps that came bundled with my phone (contacts and dialer) are stock Android or Motorola. BTW, I skipped the configuration of Motoblur so no Motoblur account or anything like that. And it's running Froyo (already installed when I got it).
Does anyone have a solution for me ?

I found Dialer One which works exactly how I want : display in the contact list only the groups I want to display, with a big phone icon on the right to initiate the call.

I can't speak specifically to the Defy, but if you've got the stock Android Contacts app and you're syncing to Google, you can tell the phone which groups to display.
From the Contacts app Menu | Display options | {account}. Then check the groups you want to see, and the uncheck the ones you don't. "My Contacts" is going to be pretty much everything under your account. If memory serves, this is only for display; the contact info is still on the phone.
Please note that in Android versions 5.x and up this may be no longer valid due to a bug.

Thank you for your answer, sorry it took me so long to reply. However, I had already tried that and it didn't change what contacts were displayed in dialer.

This worked for me on Samsung Galaxy S2. Perfect solution, as I didn't want to have to add any new applications to handle this. +1.

The answer does not work. This is a bug in Android and still not fixed in both 5.x and 6.0. SE question regarding 6.0, and bug report

@Ela782: Considering upwards of 70% of current Android devices are using versions prior to Android 5.0 this answer is still relevant.Consider also that when this question was asked and answered Lollipop was still quite far away. Still and all, I will change it to note that it may not be valid for more recent versions.

@AlE.: The thing is your answer never worked for most devices. It was always a bug in Android, since 4.x or possibly even earlier. It may work for specific vendor-devices but not in general. I'm not saying your answer is bad, it isn't, it works in some limited cases, I'm just adding a comment with additional information that this is a bug in Android and for most devices (including 4.x) has no solution currently. It helps people like me stop looking for a solution when there is none because it's a bug in the OS!


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Android chroot ubuntu - is it possible to get ubuntu to recognise usb devices
I've managed to setup the chroot but I'm unsure how to get the chroot to recognise usb devices. I'll be doing so work with microcontrollers hence I neeed to to recognise my usb based programmer.
For starters how do I populate the dev directory with the host dev directory(android)?
Is it then just a matter of getting the right kernel modules loaded?
I'm running prime1.5 firmware on the asus transformer

To populate /dev, use a bind mount (rbind=recursive bind, to catch /dev/pts):
outside# mount --rbind /dev /path/to/chroot/dev

You may also want to bind other things, like /home and /tmp (to make sharing files easier). Just remember to unmount them before rm -Rf'ing your chroot!
You can put bind mounts in fstab. I believe that'd look something like this:
/dev   /chroot/dev   none   rbind   0   0

You may need to set up udev to set proper permissions on your USB device. For example, here are the udev rules I use for my phone:
$ cat /etc/udev/rules.d/local-android.rules
ACTION!="add", GOTO="local-android_rules_end"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb_device", GOTO="local-android_rules_real"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", GOTO="local-android_rules_real"
GOTO="local-android_rules_end"

LABEL="local-android_rules_real"

# Mot Droid X
ATTR{idVendor}=="22b8", ATTR{idProduct}=="428c", MODE="660", GROUP="plugdev"

LABEL="local-android_rules_end"

Here's a more complete guide on adding Android devices to udev, for most devices.


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Android doesn't say it's Ericsson, hard restart does nothing
I bought a Sony Ericsson X8 and saw on YouTube that when we turn on this phone a page is supposed to come up and mention the name of Sony Ericsson. When I turn on my phone just it says Android and that's all.
When I wanted to hard restart it or upgrade it, I pressed the back button but nothing happens. When I hold left and right keys together, the same situation when I release.
Is my phone a fake? Why it is like that?

Hang on a second, you wanted to hard reset your phone because your splash screen didn't look like the one on YouTube?

It is very common for carriers to change things like splash screens.
You don't say where you bought your phone or who your carrier is. Can't tell you if it is a fake.
If it is legit, you don't say if you bought your phone new or used or if you or a previous owner has rooted it and flashed a custom ROM. That would almost certainly change your boot splash screen.
I've never owned an Android phone that required pushing the back button during a hard reset. Here is the only method of hard resetting that I have ever needed:

From the main home screen, tap menu
Tap Settings, then Privacy
Tap Factory data reset
Tap Reset phone
Enter your password if required, then tap Erase everything to confirm

Would you please tell me where is backbutton exactly?
I guess the previous owner root it.
is there any way I back it to its previous version?

Out of the 3 Android phones I've had, one had an "Android" startup splash screen, one had a manufacturer startup splash screen, and one originally had a phone network (Vodafone) startup splash screen, but was changed to a manufacturer splash screen in one of the (official) firmware updates.All were bought new and legitimate with manufacturer/carrier supplied firmware.
I don't think you can judge anything by what the splash screen shows, especially as this can be changed by carriers and changed in official firmware updates. You need to compare it to an identical hardware model, supplied through the same channel that is running the same firmware/OS version. It is unlikely that a random Youtube video happens to be identical to yours in all those ways.


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is there a less cluttered version of the Swype keyboard?
I am new to Android.  I really like the Swype keyboard but wish I could remove certain keys on the bottom row (e.g. SYM, the "EN" language button, etc) so that the keyboard is less cluttered.
Is this possible?  Are their any Swype equivalent keyboards that aren't as compact?
Thanks!

Try FlexT9. It's a bit pricey, but has the same functionality as Swype, with some great added features (Dragon speech support and trace input) and a better layout (in my opinion, let me know what you think of it ;) ).
Here's a screenshot from the app page:


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How to modify Bash shell prompt in Cyanogenmod?
Has anyone had any success modifying the shell prompt in Cyanogenmod? Presently, # is pretty useless, it would be much nicer to at least display the working directory. Also, is tab-completion possible?

Usually the bash shell prompt can be modified by changing the environment variable PS1.

I'm not too keen on the why, but sh on CyanogenMod is a bit watered down. As Joachim noted in the comments, usually you can modify PS1 to change your prompt, but it doesn't properly expand prompt variables:
# ps $$  <-- Just showing that the current shell is /system/bin/sh
ps $$
USER     PID   PPID  VSIZE  RSS     WCHAN    PC         NAME
root      1055  129   756    340   c006abb8 afd0c44c S /system/bin/sh
# echo $PS1
echo $PS1
#
# PS1="\w # "
PS1="\w # "
\w #   <-- \w should be PWD

However, CyanogenMod does ship with a modified version of sh called ash (I believe this is for Android Shell), which does support a subset of these prompt variables. Here's some examples of what does and doesn't work, with local echo removed for the sake of clutter/space:
# ash
~ # echo $PS1
\w \$
~ # PS1="\u \w \\$ "
root ~ # PS1="\t \w \\$ "
         ~ # PS1="\l \w \\$ "
l ~ # PS1="\H \w \\$ "
H ~ # PS1="\h \w \\$ "
localhost ~ # cd /sdcard
localhost /mnt/sdcard #

As for tab-completion: I don't personally know of a way to make this work. I imagine the main problem is actually that the adb shell buffers input up until you press enter, so the tab isn't actually sent to the shell program when you hit it. A good illustration of this is to open a file with more. The q key exits the more program, but you actually have to press q and then hit enter to quit because the initial q keystroke isn't sent until you press enter to send the whole buffer.

Okay, SSH is a different beast. Assuming you have a reasonably sane client ash will give you tab-completion along with the prompt variable expansion noted above. If you're using dropbear (the ssh daemon that ships with CyanogenMod) then you can configure ash to be the default prompt by logging into your device (either SSH or adb shell works here) and doing the following:
# echo "/system/xbin/ash" > /data/dropbear/.profile

This assumes /data/dropbear/.profile doesn't yet exist, because it will overwrite any existing version (this file is not created automatically, though). It can be edited instead if the file already exists, of course. Then restart dropbear and log in again. You should land at an ash session:
login as: root
Authenticating with public key "rsa-key-20110718"
TRACE (1391): entering fake-getpwnam
TRACE (1391): leaving fake-getpwnam
TRACE (1391): enter sign_key_free
TRACE (1391): enter dsa_key_free
TRACE (1391): leave dsa_key_free
TRACE (1391): enter rsa_key_free
TRACE (1391): leave rsa_key_free
TRACE (1391): leave sign_key_free
/data/dropbear # ps $$
USER     PID   PPID  VSIZE  RSS     WCHAN    PC         NAME
root      1392  1391  1084   416   c006abb8 afd0c44c S /system/xbin/ash
/data/dropbear #

So how do I change SSH on the phone to have the default shell of ash rather than sh?

@TKKocheran: Oh, I was thinking adb shell and not SSH. You'll get tab-completion with ash via an SSH connection. You're using dropbear, I'm guessing? To use ash by default you can just echo "/system/xbin/ash" > /data/dropbear/.profile and then restart dropbear.

@TKKocheran: This assumes you don't have a /data/dropbear/.profile file already, of course. Just edit or append if you have stuff in there that you don't want to overwrite.


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Video calling options
I don't see full support for video calling in my Samsung galaxy S.

I am not able to set a direct shortcut for video calling.
Not able to disable self image when video calling so that able to see full screen image of the caller.
No option to video call directly from logs. Need to go to the contact screen every time.

Is there any app that has better support for video calling?
Edit:
I am looking for more features in the video calling facility provided by sim provider (Airtel). I am not interested in video calling via internet like google talk/skype as I don't have internet connectivity all the time.

There are a few different options for video calling. i do not know how many of them will support the options you want, but i will try to specify their uses as best i can.

The new version of Google Talk It supports video calling and handles it well. You have to call from within the app though, i don't believe there is built in platform support for calling from call logs.
Fring
This is a widely used, multi-platform video chat app that has many options, and i know it allows you to remove your self image, group chat, and it pulls from your contact list to give you a list of other Fring users. On occasion, it has worked with Skype (mobile-to-desktop), but in my experience, this has been spotty.
Qik
The advantage to Qik is it's incredible online support. It has been improved greatly since it's introduction to the mobile market.
Tango
This got the last spot because it is personally my least favorite. You can only call to other devices using Tango, which i find extremely limiting, but it is the same scenario for Qik, so it'll have to be dealt with. It has very positive reactions from users though, so it's worth a look.
i hope this helps you get a jump start on finding a solution to what you want. Take a test run with one or a few of these and let us know what works best for you!

Note that Google Talk only officially supports video on Nexus S phones (as well as Honeycomb devices), so it could be a little buggy on other devices.

@eldarerathis is correct. But on a good note, i've had it installed on my Evo(rooted) for about two weeks now, and the only crash i get is when i try to use the rear facing camera, which isn't really useful for videochat anyways :P

Hi, I am not looking for internet based video calling. I am looking for more features in my phone to support the default video calling facility provided by my sim provider.

@balki, chances are that the features you wish to have will only come as the result of a custom ROM and a root. Beside these, there is generally no way to change or add system functions.

For #3, tap the caller image in the log, and select the second shortcut for video call. If i remember correctly, this has been available since Froyo (2.2), but I'm not sure (running Darky's Rom 10.1, which is 2.3.3).

New skype version has excellent video call quality.
The official version doesn't support video on galaxy S yet, though.
So you need to install the hacked version (check here).
I've been using it on my Samsung Galaxy S and it rocks.


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Where can I download the "Samsung Galaxy Pro PC Suite"?
Where can I download the "Samsung Galaxy Pro PC Suite"? I cannot find it.

I'm not sure it was worth it to cross-post this.

Do you mean SAMSUNG Kies, PC Sync?
Try on Samsung website, choose your exact model of Galaxy, and you'll find the available software.


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How to turn off duplicate email notification messages?
Recently bought a Samsung Galaxy 2.
There's a built-in app for both Gmail and general e-mail. I've been using the general e-mail app.
I'm finding that I'm getting notifications from both apps for the same new Gmail e-mail that comes in.  Is there a way to turn off the Gmail app notifications?  (I tried deleting the app outright but it seems Samsung won't let me do this. It's not an option in the manage applications menu, whereas it is for other 3rd party apps.)

In the settings of the gmail app there is a setting called "Email notifications".  Uncheck that setting, and you should stop getting notifications from it.

For the sake of your battery life, in the gmail app settings, change the sync settings to never.  Turning off gmail notifications doesn't mean the app isn't running in the background, chewing up your CPU/battery life.


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Gmail app does not refresh email read status
The first thing I like to do in the morning as I wake up is to read new emails in the Galaxy S. I refresh my Gmail account in the Gmail app, the mails show up, I read them and everything works smoothly.
However, when I get to work and open my Gmail account on the desktop, all the emails I had previously read show up as "unread". Why does this happen? I have Google account syncronization off, is this the reason? Doesn't this only affect the incoming email?

It's because you have synchronization off. How else is your device supposed to tell the Gmail servers that you've read a message?


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How can I disable Facebook button on HTC ChaCha without voiding warranty?
I'm interested in the HTC ChaCha but I don't like the Facebook button. I'd prefer it to link to my address book or something like that. Is it possible to do that or in the worst case disable it?

Try this app: FB ReMap For HTC ChaCha

ReMap has been removed from the Play store. Any chance of alternative apk download links? Otherwise, F-Button Lite (or the alternative) works for me.

Is impossible for you to attempt to make the change withouth the device been rooted.
According to XDA Developers Thread, you need to go into your system folder located in your root, to change the keyboard layout file located here: /system/usr/keylayout/[devicename]-keypad.kl.

Try Facebook Button for HTC ChaCha or its lite version.
It is a normal standard-abiding Android application, which installs from the Market, does not require any hacks, and works on unrooted devices — so it'll keep you warranty safe.
Feel free to check also its support thread on XDA-Developers.


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Error 331 sending SMS
An SMS failed to be sent and when I checked out the details the last line said "Error code 331".
What does this error mean ?

Error code 331 is an error that you would get back from the SMS gateway. It means: No network service is available.
If you continue to get that message, I suggest you call your carrier.

Actually I retried and it was sent successfully but I wanted to know the error meaning. How did you know the meaning of the error? Is there a list somewhere of all error codes ?

I google'd "SMS Error code 331" and found a site that had a listing of the SMS Gateway errors.


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How can I email large videos to someone else?
My sister took a minute long video on her new Droid Incredible 2 and wanted to share it with a friend.  The file size was about ~22 mb due to the higher quality of the recording. She's used to emailing videos with her blackberry, which produced far inferior quality videos (and much smaller sizes).  But if she tries to share this video via her gmail account, it won't attach the video because of its large file size.
Is there an easy way for her to share this video? Is there a way to shrink the size of the video on her phone by degrading the quality of video or similar?  She'd really like to just email it.
Other important information

She doesn't want to upload the video to YouTube (or any other service)
She doesn't have access to wifi, she uses her phone exclusively for internet access (no tethering, either).

Without using a third-party I think you're stuck.

Best option would be to upload them to either YouTube (marked as Private or Unlisted if you don't want them searchable/viewable by others) or Dropbox. Should take the same amount of time to upload both. Once uploaded to dropbox you can share either the file or a link. I typically use YouTube as it doesn't require the other person to download the large video.
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.dropbox.android

YouTube is what I suggested to her first, but she didn't seem interested in trying it.  Plus, I believe there is a limit to how big a file you can upload to YouTube without wifi (which is a real problem, she uses phone for exclusive internet access).

You could always have her chop up the video and send it in pieces: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.goseet.VidTrim A very manual process but this would serve to eliminate unecessary parts of the video and keep upload limits from being hit.

Definitely Dropbox. Don't bother uploading to YouTube and then turning the privacy on etc etc Too much trouble. Plus if you later want to delete it later it'll just be more of a pain.

I don't have any experience about the Droid Incredible 2, but most Android phones I've used allow to choose the quality of the recorded video from the camcorder app. Decreasing the resolution would be the only way without using hosting services.


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How to install cyanogenmod on a Samsung Galaxy Europa (GT-I5500B)
I currently own a Samsung Galaxy Europa (GT-I5500B) phone. I'd like to install cyanogenmod on it.

Is this possible? There's a how to available for people without experience rooting phones?
If it I don't like cyanogenmod, is it possible to revert the phone to the default Samsung install?

From the devices page, it doesn't seem like your phone is officially supported - http://www.cyanogenmod.com/devices . As an alternative, see http://www.madteam.co/forum/development/%28development%29-cyanogenmod-7-1-%27galaxy5%27-port/
If you do manage to flash a custom ROM, you can change back provided you use the ROMs supplied by http://samfirmware.com - not official, just a repository of original factory ROMs.

I like using ROM Manager for CM. If it is supported on your phone it will come up in the custom rom downloads list. However if you want a different rom, ROM Manager is not an all inclusive list, it just grabs the most popular, so don't treat this as the only place to go.
CM is popular enough that it will be in the downloads list if it is supported by your phone, so if it's not there yet, just wait until it is. ROM Manager also allows you to back up your current rom (I'm not sure if you need ROOT permissions, but if you're flashing a new rom you will have them), so just back up the factory rom using this app and if you ever need it just boot up into recovery and restore the rom.


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How to unlock a "network sim" in order to use a Android phone?
I got an old Android phone (HTC MyTouch) from someone in the States. The phone says "T-Mobile" on the top.
I put in my O2 SIM chip (Germany), turned it on, typed in the SIM, but then it asks me to type in a "SIM network unlock pin".
I went to T-Mobile here in Germany and they said to "contact T-Mobile in America" who may be able to unlock it for me.
I went to the O2 shop in Germany and they said it would definitely not be possible to use this Android phone with my O2 SIM chip.
Before I sink hours into contacting T-Mobile in the States, can someone tell me from experience if it is (technically and legally) possible to use this Android phone in Germany?

Related: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/7027/i-just-bought-an-lg-optimus-t-in-the-us-how-do-i-unlock-it-for-my-country http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/4558/unlock-code-for-motorola-droid-pro

You'll need to purchase an unlock code.
You will probably find a number of companies via google a I have used a couple, which I'm not sure I'm allowed to post here so I recommend you visit Modaco, the site run by Paul O'Brien of custom rom and rooting fame.
Click the Android part of the site and at the bottom of the site or via a web banner to the right, you'll see one of their official sponsors that does HTC codes for $20.

the ad seems to be gone / personalized. is there an updated way to find a trusted (?) unlocker?

Actually, if you have been on T-Mobile for some time, you could just contact them (online chat works too) and they will give the unlock code to you. Their online chat system works pretty well.
And it is definitely legal to use the phone in another country. It's yours.
As for technical issues, I have not heard of SIM card compatibility issues before (except for size issues between micro SIM and normal SIM). My hunch is that the O2 guy meant something concerning differences between GSM and CDMA. I know that T-Mobile uses a GSM network, but I am not too sure about Vodafone.

Is your phone CDMA or GSM. If its CDMA no one can help you. You need to continuce with T-Mobile. If it's GSM read on.
As your phone is under contract you need to use T-Mobile with your phone. Once the contract terms is over you can get it unlocked by contacting T-Mobile support.
If you want to get it unlocked before the contract ends you can do it by purchasing SIM unlock codes. I found these people on facebook https://www.facebook.com/SamsungSimUnlock and got my wife's HTC phone unlocked.
PS: In some countries it is illegal to unlock phone before the contract terms ends. Please check you local laws before doing so.

T-Mobile will always be GSM.

Sorry. I am not from US so I dont know about the packages and the carriers there. Anyhow thank you for the reply.

I'm pretty sure it's law now that if you want an unlock code from a mobile network carrier they are required to give it to you. But it definitely is not illegal. However, it may be even easier to just root the phone instead. This should (depending on how you root it) unlock your phone in the process.
As for your O2 SIM chip, I'm not sure how foreign SIM cards work in American phones, but it's definitely worth a shot.


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RemoteDroid connection problem
Has anyone tested the remotedroid app? I tried (on windows xp and samsung galaxy 2), installed both server app and android app, but nothing happens. Are there any more settings I should make? Thanks.

could you maybe post the steps you've taken so far? this isn't quite enough to follow the process and find the problem or a solution.

First, make sure you have Java Runtime Environment installed (version 1.5 or higher) and try running the server program from the .bat file instead of the .jar file. Then check your software firewalls if they have blocked the application from acting as a server, and finally check your router for port redirection (UDP, 57110) if you have a NAT setup between your Wi-Fi access point and the machine acting as a server. Also it could be worthwhile to check that the IP of the PC hasn't changed since you checked it last, or if you can make it static.


text:
4G data monitor?
I have seen, and have used several data monitors to see my data usage. This is not strictly necessary, as I am on Sprint and have an unlimited data plan. But in my searching, I have not been able to find a data monitor that monitors Sprint's 4G (WIMAX) data, along with 3G and WiFi. Does one exist? And if it doesn't, does anyone know why it hasn't been done?
Note: so far i've used PhoneUsage, NetCounter, DroidStats, and My Data Manager Free
The funny thing is, at least DroidStats and PhoneUsage both say in the information that they only do 2G/3G data. I can't even find an app that lists 4G data in the description.

Do you want an app that monitors the total 4G data used, the total 3G data used, and the total Wi-Fi used? Or do you want an app that can just tell when 4G data is being used and count it towards the total overall data usage?

Either. i already have an app to monitor 3G and Wifi, and an app that kept track of all 3 would be good, but if it only does 4G, that'd be fine too.

As of now (unless someone can correct me) there is no APP that will monitor Sprint 4G WiMax data.
Although, it can be found by calling information *4 from a Sprint phone and pressing 4 to hear details of the individual phone use. The 4G data will be listed, and can be sent in a text message to the phone (if desired) by pressing 2.

One remark: ICS (Android 4.0) has a built-in data monitor.

keeping my fingers crossed for EVO ICS ports :)

First, let me say that network data counting in Android is not so easy, because there is no API which provides this information in a clean way. The App developers have to work with some Linux internals and other issues. This is why most traffic counting Apps don't work on every hardware/software combination. For exaple I had an app that worked with Eclair but stopped working with Gingerbread on my Galaxy S.
Android introduced Long Term Evolution (4G) support with API level 11 (Honeycomb). Most traffic counters read their volume information from the underlying linux network interface. AFAIK there are only two interfaces, one for Wifi and one 2G/3G/4G, which means:

It will be hard to monitor 4G data separated from 2G/3G
If a app says it monitors 2G/3G it's very likely that this also includes 4G
Androids 4G API is relatively new. Support, including separate traffic counting (if it's possible), will hit the apps in the near future.

Here is an example listing that shows the interfaces and their traffic on my Galaxy S. pdp0 is the mobile and eth0 is the wifi iterface:
Interface name: lo
Bytes in: 204335770
Bytes out: 204335770

Interface name: svnet0
Bytes in: 669002
Bytes out: 38238

Interface name: ifb0
Bytes in: 0
Bytes out: 0

Interface name: ifb1
Bytes in: 0
Bytes out: 0

Interface name: usb0
Bytes in: 0
Bytes out: 0

Interface name: sit0
Bytes in: 0
Bytes out: 0

Interface name: ip6tnl0
Bytes in: 0
Bytes out: 0

Interface name: eth0
Bytes in: 9981470
Bytes out: 3524023

Interface name: pdp0
Bytes in: 1421620
Bytes out: 361198

apps that say they monitor 2G/3G don't monitor 4G (to my knowledge) and i would assume it's because it's a different type of signal. And even if something just gave me the total count of 2G/3G/4G, i'd be okay with it, but nothing i've encountered does that.

I forgot to ask, by 4G do you mean WiMax or LTE? I can mean both and my answer goes for LTE.

good question! WiMax, i've got Sprint

I use NetCounter. It separates the Wi-Fi data usage from the 3G/4G data usage, and so far it has been very accurate (at least on the mobile data).

"NetCounter is a simple network traffic counter for EDGE/3G and Wi-Fi." no 4G tracking :/

Hmmm... Well somehow it works with my phone. I use it for 3G and 4G tracking. The count on NetCounter is actually 1 MB more than what my carrier says I have used, so it is accurate in that respect. However, I'm not using 4G, I'm using H+, which is AT&Ts version of '4G'

Unfortunately, it doesn't work with Sprint's 4G :/ i only had 4G on and used many internet apps sequentially and refreshed NetCounter after each one, and never got anything.

Ah well worth a try I guess. Sorry about that. If I come across anything I'll let you know!

I use Stats Free app. It shows 4G data in addition to 2G/3G and Wi-Fi.


text:
How can I do usb tethering with Mac Os X (using gingerbread Acer Liquid Metal & snow leopard)?
I would like to use my Android phone to let my hackintosh (10.6 snow leopad) surf the internet.
The standard way of selecting usb tethering on android and plugging the usb cable tested on windows and ubuntu doesn't work...
Thanks.

EasyTether i think would be your best option. The free version is full-figured, and paying for the full market version will get you https:// sites. And the drivers for it are available on their website for download.
P.S. it's only $4.99 right now in the Amazon Appstore ;)

It's not free and shame on apple and/or android for not implementing an easy and free solution like in windows or linux but...
It works :)

My dad swears by EasyTether. And once you have it, you can download the desktop client for all the other platforms if ya want ;)

Did you try the Wifi-Hotspot option (available since Android 2.2 (?))?
With this app, your android phone will act as a hotspot and your mac should be able to connect to it.

As I wrote in the question I need an usb solution

You just wrote that the USB solution doesnt work...

Right: it doesn't work.
That's why I'm here to ask...
Because I want it to work :)
Question is: "How can I do usb tethering with Mac Os X (using gingerbread Acer Liquid Metal & snow leopard)?"


text:
What does the option "Allow mock locations" represent?
What does the "Allow mock locations" option under the Applications >> Development settings page represent?

Fake GPS data.  Presumably this is for testing apps that use GPS, so you don't actually have to travel all over the world :P
Apps such as Location Spoofer take advantage of this.  You could probably fake Foursquare checkins or something using it, but they do check to make sure your checkins are "realistic" so you probably don't want to check in to London UK and Melbourne AU within the same hour.


text:
Mobile to PC skype video chat?
I have tried to no end, but Skype for Android doesn't support video chat (unless someone leaked a new version that i haven't seen yet), and I cannot find another video chat app that will connect with Skype contacts. As per the title, I am looking for an app that will allow me to video call from my phone to someone using Skype on their computer. Does anyone know of such an app?
UPDATE: I didn't realize it needed specification, but it does turn out Skype supports video calling for some devices:

Requirements Android 2.1 operating system and above Video calling
  supported on the following handsets: Samsung Google Nexus S, HTC
  Desire S, Sony Ericsson Xperia neo, Sony Ericsson Xperia pro

So to revise my question, is there an app that allows the HTC EVO to video call from phone to pc?

What type of phone do you have? Most of the video calling apps on the market only "officially" support a specific list of devices, Skype being one of them. They don't have a public API, though, so I doubt any third-party clients will support video chat on Skype's protocol (Fring may have previously but it's been blocked by Skype).

@eldarerathis, HTC EVO, rooted.

Skype has been systematically denying access to other services/clients that try to use their network.  Unlike Jabber (GTalk) or even MSN, you're not likely to find another client that will work for very long.

This article describes the next release of Skype for Android (v. 2.1) which now supports 17 phones on video chat. The answer before was directing to other services or modified versions of Skype, but this is official, so i thought i'd post it.

Since you're rooted, you could also try the newest version of Google Talk. It isn't officially supported but I use it on my EVO just fine (I run CyanogenMod 7, though).
ooVoo has a desktop client and a mobile app, enabling mobile to PC video calls (supports the EVO, but haven't tried it myself).
There also appears to be a plugin for the Yahoo! Messenger app which enables video chat between mobiles or with the PC client. Again, I haven't tried this one myself, but it seems to be the least restrictive about what devices it supports.
Edit: It looks like there's a thread on XDA where people are talking about Skype with video on the EVO. Might be something helpful there.

i have the new Google Talk and i've tried ooVoo (didn't like it much on either end), but neither does what i'm asking. i'd like to be able to video chat from my phone to a computer running Skype, as it is by far the most widely used video call service. It's hardly practical to ask everyone i usually skype with to change services so i can call them from my phone...

Supported devices for ooVoo.  The EVO's not there but forum posts suggest it might work anyways.  Edit: Weird inconsistency! I'd go with what the Market says.

@Matthew: Weird, the Market lists the EVO as supported (see my link). Although it also lists the "EVO 3G" which...doesn't exist.

@jlehenbauer As I noted in my comment, you can't Skype without Skype (apart from when apps temporarily find a hole in Skype's access control). Fring used to work with Skype, for example, and is now blocked by Skype.

would there be a possibility of using the Skype apk from a device similar to the EVO (the Desire S, as are all HTC phones, is very similar to the Evo)? or are they the same app that detect the device when they run?

@jlehenbauer: You could try that, but I couldn't  honestly say if it would work. Edit: Looks like there's a thread on XDA where people are talking about Skype with video on the EVO. Might be something helpful there.

There is an app called TANGO it allows  video-calling to mobile from a PC. It also supports 3G phones too. Its really good and free worldwide.


text:
Is it possible to backup a ROM before installing a custom one?
Can I backup my current ROM (Samsung modifications plus a few telco specific applications installed) before installing a custom ROM?

Theoretically yes.  Practically, it's much better just to reflash the ROM and then restore backed-up data.

The best backup you can do is a Nandroid backup. I didn't know what it was for a long time, but it works like magic. I'll include instructions, but note that i have an EVO, so they might vary a little.

Reboot into Recovery
This is different for most phones, for example, the EVO you reset while holding the `Volume Down` button. Or, since you have a rooted phone, you might be able to get to it by holding down the `Power` button, then selecting `Reboot/Recovery`.

Once in this menu, select `Backup/Restore`
Choose `Backup`, or a similarly named option

Flash your new rom or whatever, and if you are not pleased, simply follow the steps back to recovery and do a Restore. This will reset your phone to it's exact settings from before, down to which widgets you had on your homescreen and what settings you had enabled and disabled.

this is if you're looking for a full backup and restore, of course. If you're looking to backup data only, best use some app like Titanium Backup

I always do both. I do the titanium backup, then I backup with nandroid. If something fails in just the app data, I dont have to revert to the nandroid backup, i just restore from titanium, or I can even Wipe the app data when I do the ROM install, and use titanium to restore the apps.

for some reason i've never had titanium work for me, but Nandroid is foolproof.

There's an easier way than this even. I use ROM Manager, and it automatically asks you if you want to back up your current rom before installing a new one. ROM Manager also let's you install directly from your SD card, so you can do your backup, data and Davlik cache wipe, and flashing the new rom all from this app. It comes in most custom roms too.

ROM Manager may be great, but when you're new to all this, it might be "too easy". I recommend doing it "manually" once or twice, just to make sure you have a basic understanding of what happens on your phone when you flash recovery/roms or do backups.


text:
Problems with music playback - Music File corrupt?
I have an HTC Inspire 4G (Desire HD, Ace), and whenever I have headphones plugged in and am listening to music, the music player will randomly start playing new songs, pausing and starting a new one every second or so, until I unplug my headset. I plug my headset back in, then at some point my phone will do this again, and I have to start this process all over again.
It started on the stock sense rom using the stock sense player when I first got the phone. I then tried using winamp, same problem. I rooted the phone, flashed CM7, and am now using Cloudskipper as my music player, still the problem persists. I even unchecked headset controls, still continued. I even tried another pair of headphones, however both were BEATS headphones. What is going on??

+1 for great question. Thanks for including your troubleshooting steps.

It was something wrong with the firmware in the phone. I installed a new kernel with the beats audio mod and everything worked correctly after that.

Sounds like the phone has a problem with that type of headphones. I'd try a different few different types of headphones.
It could also be a hardware problem with the headphone port.

I tried a different pair of headphones and still the same problem. If it's a hardware problem with the port is there any way I can fix it?

got insurance on it?

Check you audio socket for possible debris.


text:
why do all sound apps get  bluetooth button events, all at once
If i have my phone (thunderbolt cyanogenmod7/2.3) connected to a bluetooth stereo and i hit the play button on the stereo, music, pandora, Subsonic, and Audible all start playing at once. pausing pauses all of them.
is there some way of controlling what apps respond to the buttons?
is there an app to filter button events?

I suspect that they're all listening to a "Play Music" Intent. Our resident developers can probably shine some more light on this.

Interesting, on my OG Droid w/ CM7 it will occasionally decide to play from a random audio app when I press the lockscreen play button. I wonder if there's any relation.

Also see my related question: "What determines which application acts to a bluetooth AVRCP command?"

The app Media Button Router is just what you are looking for. The app allows you to choose the media app you wish to control with the Bluetooth forward/reverse buttons using voice prompts.
The app doesn't work perfectly with all media apps, but I find that by playing with the settings you can usually overcome problems. But when it works it is magic!

Check to see if all of those music processes are running. I would assume they all listen to play/pause events while active, maybe verifying that all but one are killed could get a response from just one.


text:
What does "obtaining IP address" mean?
When I try to connect to a free WiFi, my Xperia Android smartphone displays:

obtaining ip address

Why does it happen?
Which IP address is that?
Is it static or dynamic?
Does this IP address identify my smartphone?

Or does it identify the WiFi router and is its IP address common for different smartphones/laptops?

If you're concerned about privacy, keep in mind that most free wifi is unsecured & unencrypted.

Bad migration ... this is not Android-specific.

Why does it happen: When you connect to a DHCP enabled router, your device (notebook, smartphone etc) obtains an IP address in order to access internet via that router/server.
Which IP is that, static or dynamic: It's a dynamic internal IP address and is valid only within that network.
Does this IP address identify my smartphone: Yes, but only in that network and it's actually the MAC address of your network adapter that identifies your device, not your IP.
The same is true for the router. It may have a static or dynamic IP which is given by the ISP. If it's static then yes it identifies it, otherwise no. Your external IP (router's IP) is different from your internal IP. All of the devices connected to that router have the same external IP address.

All of the devices connected to that router have the same external IP address. This is not necessarily the case, but if you're in a network where this isn't true, then you probably already know about it.

When it says that, while connecting over wifi, it means that the machine is asking the local network for connection information. On a basic level it's already connected. But when it says that, it doesn't yet have an IP address and thus can't yet transfer TCP nor UDP traffic (probably some other types too, like ICMP).
So it's really trying to get assigned an IP address for use on the local network, which is something handled by a DHCP service (usually in the router).
This is not special to the device type, it's just something that's a part of networking.

so, is this ip address private?? (10.x.x.x; 192.168.x.x; 172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255)

The second one for sure. The first one, probably is. The range at the end, I don't know wtf that is. But if it's over wifi, then it's local to that network. I really doubt it's public to the internet from there-- Though there are ways of knowing the private IP, but you can't open connections to it without special provisions.

See RFC 1918, section 3 (on page 4) for the official list of private IP address blocks (all the blocks mentioned in the first comment above are definitely reserved for private use):  http://rfc1918.openrfc.org/

Being part of an RFC 1918 range ("private IP") does not mean that your data is secure.   It just means that the IP address can't be directly routed from the Internet without some form of address translation and/or proxy server.

If your smartphone says "obtaining ip-address" it means it is searching for an IP address or connecting to an IP address. If you are trying to connect via Wi-Fi using the smartphone, it may be a static IP address or dynamic ip address. Your IP address won't identify the device, but the device has to obtain an IP address if you connect to the internet and the service provider will know about your device. Every device connected to the internet has its own IP address. Visit this site to check the internet IP address for your smartphone, iPad, PC or laptop.

"Obtaining" always refers to a dynamic (DHCP) address. A static address you would need to configure manually, and then the device would not need to "obtain" it. "Connecting to an IP address" is something completely different again, as for "connecting to" the address must already be known. Plus, the "provider" has nothing to do with your WiFi :)


text:
Download an APK without an SD card or computer?
I have an Archos 7 Home Tablet v1, with a Cyanogenmod 7 rom on it. I do not have an sd card for it yet, and was wondering, Is there any way I can install/download an APK file to it without an SD card? When I try to download an APK for a market fixer, it tells me that I cannot download it without an SD card. I cannot connect to the device with my computer, because the cyanogenmod messes with the drivers. Thanks.

Try wget http://www.blah.com/files.apk in the terminal emulator (if you're using CyanogenMod, then you probably have BusyBox, which includes wget), you might need root to write to the internal memory, so if you don't have write permission in the current directory, then you might need to type su first.

You can also use ADB to push the file onto your phone.

I have tried, and ADB doesn't recognize it.

Can you turn on "Install from unknown location" in the Applications panel? If so, I keep some APKs in my DropBox folder.


text:
Is there a known issue with HTTPS and the Android browser?
I have a Galaxy S2 running 2.3.3, all up to date and not rooted.  On several sites I find that logging in is impossible due to requests sent on HTTPS not returning a response.
I've not tested the issue exhaustively, but the most notable failures for me are my Natwest online banking and signing in to Stack Exchange sites with my Google ID.  In both these cases the response from the server never appears, in the case of Stack sites this happens when clicking the 'Log in with Google' button, I never even get a chance to enter credentials.
I've resorted to using Opera Mobile for now, and since this works fine it seems to be an issue localised to the android default browser.  Is there a way of fixing it, or should I just choose a different browser and set that as default instead?

You mean Android by "droid", yes?

I can't reproduce the issue described with the stock android browser, I think you may have had a "hiccup" in data connectivity or something.

Sorry, I do mean Android, thanks for the correction

@Ryan: it's not a hiccup, it's been a consistent issue since I got the phone in May.

I have this issue with the Power School site for my kids' school. I can't login via any Android device: Droid Inc, CM7 Nook or ASUS Transformer. But I also had issues with FF and that site as well. I was told to uncheck "use TLS 1.0" security protocol and that made FF work but there is not equivalent option for the Android browsers. I also have this issue with Dolphin HD but I haven't tried any other browsers yet.

I don't think there is any widely known issue with this. I am able to sign in to StackExchange automatically on my Nexus S. I looked around at the Android Issue Tracker and while there are a lot of results for "browser https", none in the first 20 or so seemed pertinent.
It might just be a problem local to your phone. I'd try resetting it.

I did do a factory reset in the end as I started to have unusual issues with battery life. After a reset and full update, everything seems to be working fine.


text:
Launch browser with --option
In order to use the remote debugging WebKit's feature, I'd like to launch android's browser (from emulator) with the --remote-debugging-port option.
How can I do this?
Thank you.

As far as I understand you can't launch an APK with arguments of that sort.  The comments on the page you link to seem to indicate that it's not supported on Android, as well.  I find it odd that the instructions appear to be specifically for Chromium if it was meant to work on all WebKit browsers.


text:
Same phone number with different code problem
There is a strange bug/issue with almost all phones (non-android phones too). If two different contacts have same numbers with different starting code they appear as one contact.

In call log both numbers show under one contact
When any one of them calls, phone shows just one contact

For example, my brother (03331234567) and father (03311234567).

I dial 03311234567 manually and press call, on screen it appears as "brother 0331123456789
I dial number of my father from contact list same happens.
Father calls me but on screen Brother appears

How to solve this issue. I am using froyo
Update:  I posted it as a new issue
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=18684

This also creates problems with text messaging. Sometimes the wrong contact receives the messages and the threads get all mixed up. Very annoying to say the least.

I don't think you can solve this issue. (For what it's worth I have the same issue when my wife calls me from our home phone. It looks like I'm calling myself.)
What's happening is the phone is comparing the phone number (being called, incoming) against the list of contacts and selecting the first one it finds. Certainly it can't tell who's on the other line on an incoming call. It also doesn't keep track of which contact you came from when you're calling out. (The likeliest explanation there is that the Contact app is handing off just the phone number to the calling app, which then does a lookup with just the number to get the contact to display on the screen.)
As you say, this isn't just an Android issue. I also saw it with my Palm Centro.

This is because the phone number +123456789012 is the same as 03456789012 when called from the same country and is the same as 56789012 when called in the same area code, the phone has no way to know that +213456789012 is a different contact than +123456789012 if you store your contacts as 03456789012.
Try adding country and area code for these contacts? Also, what happens if you dial the complete number when dialing out, i.e. dial +123456789012 instead of 03456789012.

Wow, it looks like a very reasonable explanation to the problem. Let me try that

The country code (+xx) is already added to both numbers but it still has that problem. How it still can not recognize to different numbers?

@LifeH2O: if adding +country code doesn't help, then this might be a real bug; you might want to post an issue (although the chance of someone who can make a difference actually noticing is near zero and it is likely the fix won't be backported to your current handset).

Isn't there an app for that?

I posted it as a new issue
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=18684


text:
Android Read recent SMS messages from command line
I have recently broken my Android's screen. (Again)
Its a T-Mobile G2
Trying to keep up with my busy technology related life is hard enough without losing my link with everyone.
I have rooted the phone and have the USB Debugging already turned on.
Does anyone know how I would check my recent SMS Messaged from the adb shell so I can keep up with work while i save up to get a new phone or a replacement screen.
Thanks for anyone that has any information regarding this.
EDIT
Response to eldarerathis
C:\android-sdk\platform-tools>adb shell
$ cd /data/data/com.android.providers.telephony/databases
cd /data/data/com.android.providers.telephony/databases
$ sqlite3 mmssms.db
sqlite3 mmssms.db
sqlite3: permission denied
$

cant chmod the file.
do you know actually where it is ?
$ chmod +x sqlite3
chmod +x sqlite3
Bad mode
$

su leaves me with only basic commands
$ su
su
# cd /data/data/com.android.providers.telephony/databases
cd /data/data/com.android.providers.telephony/databases
# sqlite3 mmssms.db
sqlite3 mmssms.db
sqlite3: not found
#

Corrected
sqlite was not installed
C:\android-sdk\platform-tools>adb shell
$ cd /data/data/com.android.providers.telephony/databases
cd /data/data/com.android.providers.telephony/databases
$ sqlite3 mmssms.db
sqlite3 mmssms.db
SQLite version 3.6.22
Enter ".help" for instructions
sqlite>

Also to Access the database I needed to be root.
C:\android-sdk\platform-tools>adb shell
$ su
# cd /data/data/com.android.providers.telephony/databases
cd /data/data/com.android.providers.telephony/databases
# sqlite3 mmssms.db
sqlite3 mmssms.db
SQLite version 3.6.22
Enter ".help" for instructions
sqlite>

Thanks a lot eldarerathis
This Link Helped

It looks like you don't have the sqlite3 binary on your device. The first link in my answer has instructions to help you install it to /system/bin. Here is a link to the binary itself.

I know this is 10 years old, but if you're looking for a cleaner answer, look here: https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/241439/how-to-access-texts-on-rooted-android-device-from-terminal/241440#241440. Might need to modify the script slightly to get new messages as opposed to messages based on conversation name.

This is really ugly, but you can read them from the command line by using sqlite3 to view the database entries. You'll probably need to dig up a binary for this unless you have a custom ROM installed. There are some instructions for installing said binary in this Stack Overflow question, and SuperOneClick comes packaged with it (a copy of the binary itself can be found here).
If you do need to install the binary, use mount (with no parameters) to determine where your /system partition is physically located (mine is /dev/block/mtdblock3, for example). Then follow the instructions in the first link above, and start by remounting it in read/write mode with the command:
mount -o rw,remount /your/system/partition /system

Once you have sqlite3 you'll want to open an adb shell, switch to root with su, and then do the following:
# cd /data/data
cd /data/data
# cd com.android.providers.telephony/databases ***
cd com.android.providers.telephony/databases
# sqlite3 mmssms.db
sqlite3 mmssms.db
SQLite version 3.7.2
Enter ".help" for instructions
Enter SQL statements terminated with a ";"
sqlite> SELECT * FROM sms WHERE read=0;

This will pull up all of the rows from the table for all of the unread messages. The columns in the table are defined thusly (so you can trim the SELECT):
CREATE TABLE sms (_id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,thread_id INTEGER,address TEXT,
  person INTEGER,date INTEGER,protocol INTEGER,read INTEGER DEFAULT 0,
  status INTEGER DEFAULT -1,type INTEGER,reply_path_present INTEGER,
  subject TEXT,body TEXT,service_center TEXT,locked INTEGER DEFAULT 0,
  error_code INTEGER DEFAULT 0,seen INTEGER DEFAULT 0);

***Note for the marked line: this may be slightly different depending on your device and version of Android which is why I have included this cd command separately. I think it used to be com.android.providers/telephony/databases on older devices but I don't quite remember. Use ls to look around for the proper pathing here.

Alternatively, you could try copying the .db file onto your SD card (or pulling it with adb pull) and then reading it on your computer with sqlite.

I tried this and it seems that sqlite3 has permission denied

it says bad mode

@Jason: You need to be root to read that directory (just execute su beforehand).

@Jason: Hm, use chmod 0755 sqlite3, then. Maybe the stock chmod binary doesn't like the +x parameter.

as soon as I execute su. it acts like there are no commands

ok. thats a better mode. but I have to find sqlite. ill see if I can find it

@Jason: Most likely /system/bin if it's already installed, otherwise you can put it in /system/bin yourself.

yes you are correct. sqlite3 was not installed. Thank goodness for adb and su. And thanks a lot eldarerathis. adding sqlite3 to my /system/bin folder solved the issue

Thanks to the beautiful hint above from eldarerathis, I just do
DB=/data/data/com.android.providers.telephony/databases/mmssms.db
echo 'select address,body from sms;' | ./sqlite3 -csv $DB

to read my SMSes from my root prompt.
Since I didn't have sqlite3, I first had to download it with
curl http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16958605/sqlite3
chmod a+x sqlite3

Or see SQLite3 installer on Google Play (if you don't trust the dropbox source).

A dl.dropbox.com URL for that binary doesn't feel safe. Can you supply an official source?

In case you're interested in more details than just sender and message (as in this answer), I've just found a nice article on the topic: Read SMS directly from Sqlite database in Android. Also see: The message data structure.
Even better, take a look at Github: ANDROID-SMS is a tool written in Python which recovers all SMS messages and organizes them into SMS Conversations with statistics provided. It also recovers all MMS messages and organizes them into MMS Conversations,
with the respective files. I've not tried it (yet) myself (just found it a few minutes ago), but it sounds pretty neat.
Of course, this program doesn't work on the Android device directly – but instead on your computer (where it requires Python 2.7 with SQLite3 for Python). So you will need to first pull the database from the device. All required steps are described on the project's Github main page.

Another solution I invented utilizes an app on the phone that reacts on SMS and saves it to a file that you can read with ADB.

Install any Tasker-like app, I made it with E-Robot
Create new command
Add event Contact=>SMS
Add action Memory=>Write file, there you can save SMS to a new file every time or to the same one with separator. Anyway save it to /sdcard or any path accessible via ADB.
Monitor that path with ADB and read SMS contents.


text:
Why does Android disable HSDPA/EDGE communication while calling?
My ISP currently has a severe outage, which is why I'm tethering my Android phone and a MacBook over WiFi. The Android phone is a HTC Desire GSM running Cyanogen 7. I have a stable HSDPA/EDGE connection.
Now, as this is my only phone, it rings from time to time. But whenever it does and I accept a call, the mobile data connection is lost or cancelled. Same for placing calls. Writing texts won't cancel the mobile data connection.
So, whenever I am on the phone, the internet connection goes dead.
Why is this? Is there any technical limitation that won't allow one to call and send/receive mobile data at the same time? If not, can you somehow trick Android into not cutting the connection?

What network are you on?

My carrier is "bob", which is a subdivision of A1 Telekom (warning, German page). They offer a basic GSM network with UMTS/HSDPA data, my phone occasionally switches to EDGE when reception gets worse.

Hmm, I can't find any info on whether they support DTM.

Most HSDPA / EDGE CDMA networks don't support data and voice at the same time.  CDMA Modern GSM networks (including 3G and HSDPA, but not EDGE) do, and LTE will, so I'm not sure why you're having this problem.
It's possible that Dual-Transfer Mode may not be enabled on your phone.  Alternatively, your network might not support it.  (Info on DTM.)

Okay, seems that's just how it is -- still: Do you happen to have a source? You know, [citation needed], I'd love to read about that!

This is backwards, isn't it?

@eldarerathis This is what I get for answering questions on my phone after I wake up :P I don't read things properly.  Yeah, CDMA's generally the one that doesn't support simultaneous voice/data.  Unfortunately I can't find any particularly reliable resources.

@slhck So I think this is wrong ... you should probably un-accept.

Hmm, well let's see, maybe somebody has the definite answer?

@Matthew: I can't find anything "official" about CDMA not supporting it, but here's AT&T stating UMTS/HSDPA supports simultaneous voice and data: http://developer.att.com/developer/forward.jsp?passedItemId=2400252

It all depends on who your mobile carrier is. I have AT&T and they allow one to surf and talk at the same time. This is because their networks are CDMA.
If you want to surf the web while you're talking on the phone it sounds like your only option right now is to change carriers.

Since Europe's never going to see CDMA, I guess there's no option to switch. There are US carriers that use GSM?

Well AT&T used to use GSM. I'm not sure if they still do in normal cell phones (non-smartphones), but a few years back my internet would be edge rather than the typical 3G or H+(4G) that shows on my smartphone.

Source? AT&T has always been GSM as far as I'm aware.

Close.  AT&T is W-CDMA which is based on UMTS, a GSM technology.  Source. I think the distinction is between technology sets and protocols ... CDMA protocols can be used on a non-CDMA network, if I'm understanding this correctly (no guarantees).

@Matthew Read this, it should be under network design. Is this what you're looking for?

@Matthew: That's correct. CDMA is just a protocol ("channel access method"), but it's used colloquially to refer to the implementation in the case of carriers like Sprint and Verizon, which is kind of confusing...

AT&T does not use CDMA2000 networking; they're GSM, with GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSPA+ for data.


text:
CM7 Dialer Problems
I am currently running CM7 on an HTC Desire HD. When I make a call, CM7's dialer for some reason has the hold button right where the side of my face touches the phone. I have tried to use tasker to make the screen lock and have a timeout of one second when I answer the phone or call someone, but this didn't work.
Is there a way to fix this or are there custom dialers out there that changes the look of this screen??

The problem is not really CM7's fault. It sounds like you have an issue with the proximity sensor on the device. The screen should go black when you put the phone up to your ear. Searching, I have found that this seems to be a common problem with the Desire HD. You could try some things like recalibrating the sensor.


text:
How do I *really* disable autocorrection?
I am experiencing this on a Droid2 Global running Froyo, but it was happening on a Droid Pro as well. It did not happen on my Droid running Cyanogen or stock Froyo.
When I'm typing in the gTalk app or using Tweetcaster, my text is auto-corrected. Even when I have auto-correct turned off in the keyboard settings. I use a lot of shorthand, and this gives rise to interesting conversations some times as auto-correct turns abbreviations like "DX" and "D2" into "PD" and similar silliness.
So, the question is: Is there more than one setting for auto-correct? If so, where is it hidden.
It seems to be global since more than one app suffers from it.

there are at least 4 autocorrection-related settings in the stock Froyo keyboard (Auto-capitalization, Quick fixes, Show suggestions, and Auto-complete). If you're using alternative keyboards (or your phone comes with alternative keyboard), then you need to disable autocorrect in those keyboards instead of in the stock keyboard's setting.

Gingerbread seems to have different options now and seems to suffer from this a little less. Thanks!

From the Android 2.2 Froyo Users Manual, specifically on pages 329 and 330, is mentioned the following settings about auto correction features:
To access:
Press "Home" > Press "Menu" > Touch Settings.

Android Keyboard settings screen
The Android Keyboard settings apply to the onscreen keyboard that is included with
your phone. The correction and capitalization features affect only the English version
of the keyboard.

Auto-capitalization

Check to have the onscreen keyboard automatically capitalize the first letter of the first word after a period, the first word in a text field, and each word in name fields.

Quick fixes

Check to automatically correct some common misspellings as you type.

Show suggestions

Check to show suggested words in a strip above the onscreen keyboard as you type. See “Using the onscreen keyboard” on page 29.

Auto-complete

Check to automatically enter a suggested word, highlighted in orange in the strip above the keyboard, when you enter a space or punctuation. See “Using the onscreen keyboard” on page 29.

Device Keyboard settings screen
This settings screen is available only if your phone has a physical keyboard.

Auto-replace

Check to correct misspelled words as you type.

Auto-cap

Check to capitalize the first letter of the first word in sentences.

Auto-punctuate

Check to insert a period ( . ) when you press the Space key twice in a row

Depending on what exactly you wish to disable, you need to analyse all the above options to match your criteria.