text:
Reply-by-SMS with Google Voice
I've got a Samsung Galaxy Nexus running stock Android Jelly Bean 4.1.1. As you probably know, Jelly Bean has a new feature that allows you to "respond-by-SMS" to incoming phone calls. Unfortunately, this feature sends a text message from your "real" phone number instead of Google Voice. For those of us that use Google Voice full-time, and don't want to reveal our real phone numbers, and keep accurate messaging logs, this is undesirable behavior.
Question: Does anyone know if it's possible to get the respond-by-SMS feature to send from Google Voice instead of the built-in Messaging app?
The description of the feature in question is: "When you miss a call, a new notification lets you return the call or reply by SMS with a single touch."
http://www.android.com/about/jelly-bean/

You should be able to go to
Settings>Manage Applications>All Applications>
Go to your MMS.apk, and reset the defaults.
So long as you already have Google Voice installed on your phone,
The next time you try to use this feature, it should ask you which one you want to use.
But IDK- No JB love on the HTC Sensation, yet.

I'll give this a shot.

The button to clear defaults is greyed out for the Messaging application.

I found a simple but amazingly effective workaround solution: Any.Do for Android. Install it from Google Play.
How it works for me:

Decline incoming call
A missed call popup will appear from Any.Do. Choose the Send Text option
I think the first time you use it, you have to choose default app. Here's where you choose Google Voice and, bam, you are all set!

You can create custom default messages as well within Any.Do.
Hope this helps.


text:
Offline HTML5 apps
Does android natively have good support for fully-functional HTML5 offline apps?
By fully functional I mean without artificial limitations on HTML5 features; for example a limit on the size of offline storage would make many potential applications impossible.

By natively, do you mean "support in Stock Browser"?

Or, are you thinking that you can play offline HTML5 app directly from app drawer?

You really need to provide an example of what kind of HTML5 app you had in mind.

What you're referring to as HTML5 is not that. DOM storage is not a feature of html. So lets address the questions now.

Does android natively have good support for fully-functional HTML5 offline apps?

There're several versions of android out there and thus each of the stock browsers implement a varying set of the different specifications. One way to find out if the feature that you depend on is supported is to use a website like HTML5 test to compare the different versions. Also make sure that don't forget Opera Mobile and Chrome users.

By fully functional I mean without artificial limitations on HTML5 features

No browser limits features artificially. At most it's not implemented.

for example a limit on the size of offline storage would make many potential applications impossible.

You're severely mistaken here. The limit is in the specification of DOM storage. It's intentional and unlikely to change. You don't want apps taking up hundreds of megabytes of space do you?

Also, please post examples of HTML5 offline apps that work well on Android.

Sorry, I don't use any.
Without more details this is as much as I can tell you.
For further reading refer to the documentation available on the Mozilla Developer Network.

The storage limitation
Extracted from the official documentation provided by the W3C:
Web Storage: Editor's Draft 10 July 2012 - disk space:

User agents should limit the total amount of space allowed for storage areas.
...
A mostly arbitrary limit of five megabytes per origin is recommended. Implementation feedback is welcome and will be used to update this suggestion in the future.

Is safe to assume that developers follow the recommendations and in fact there's a limit (five megabytes). Do beware that everything is in flux, but I don't think this limit will change drastically.
Additionally, you can access http://html5test.com/ and check your browser's support.

As a personal note:
I'm a programmer and I've developed some APPs for iOS and Android, that go over the 5MB limitation. All is working well, and had no complains from the client or the APP users.
My recommendation: Try to respect the limit if possible, but I believe that those 5MB will soon be expanded.
Check this article that provides some tests on the Offline Storage Limits.Posted on February 24, 2011 by Garth

Example of an HTML5 offline app
Google Currents

Beautiful, free, favorite publications for your phone and tablet.
Google Currents delivers beautiful magazine-like editions to your tablet and smartphone for high speed and offline reading.

Google Currents uses HTML/CSS/JS? For it's whole UI?

@RichardBorcsik Can't speak for the whole UI! Just know that behind the scenes, what producers use and users see, is HTML5. See this producers sample!

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
How to stop a text received from splitting up?
I just got my first Smart phone (Galaxy S II) and it splits up texts longer than 160 characters when I receive them. I often forward these long texts. Is there something I can do?

The following may work: download an app called SMS Backup+ from Play which backs up texts to Gmail. From there, it should be simple enough to forward.

in my experience the division of texts like this has more to do with the carrier.
For instance, I am on T-Mo.. and texts I get from other T-Mo users are never split.
This is not a limitation of the device so much as it is a limitation with SimpleMessageSyntax

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


text:
Camera app that takes picture as soon as it has focus
I'm at a concert and I want to leave the camera app open and have it snap multiple photos as soon as it has focus. Is there an app for that?


text:
How to transfer files over WiFi without a hotspot?
I'm looking for a way to transfer files between an Android phone (Samsung Galaxy S2, rooted) and any computer system I may need to interact with (this means preinstalled software on the computer, besides a regular web browser, is not an option) without connecting to an actual WiFi hotspot.
Essentially I'm looking for something that works the same was as WiFi direct (allows two phones to transfer files over WiFi) but that would be compatible with any computer with WiFi.
So far I have tried creating an ad-hoc connection from the phone (as I can't take the computer being ad-hoc-creating-able for granted) using Android WiFi Tether and connecting the computer to the device, testing the different modes it offers (WEXT, Netd & Softap). I have tried to connect to and from the computer over LAN, FTP and SMB without any success.
I feel like I'm missing some small step over here. I've looked through multiple other posts, but I couldn't find any that would show a way to do this without actually connecting to an already available wifi network.

For future reference, this is one of the many things that Bluetooth is good for.

Not if you want to transfer large files.

But, you don't want to use a file sharing website? Those are the simplest ways of doing so. There are a few without any storage limits, so...

@rjt.rockx That would be the equivalent of being already connected to a hotspot.

Oh, okay. I dunno anything about this, but I just wanted to help, that's all. Good luck for your question!

@Nit : Would it suit your needs to make your Android a Web/FTP server and download your stuff on any device that can connect to internet? If the device is in your vicinity then you can always make the server limited to local. But you countered one argument here as That would be the equivalent of being already connected to a hotspot. So I ask you here:- Do you want data transfer without involving internet connectivity at all or is completely about not using Wifi which involves hotspot?

@Firelord The question is about transferring files wirelessly without network connectivity, yes.

If the point is to not to use internet connectivity, then I suggest to use Servers Ultimate Pro. You can make a local FTP server on Android which can be accessed from any common device through browser to download stuff and upload to server via some app (popular OS are supported). There is a catch here. If you don't want external Wifi to be used here then you've to create hotspot. But this app can limit the FTP access to your hotspot's subnet making it virtually inaccessible from outside world.

More so, if the concern is to not to allow the other device to use your internet from hotspot, then either disable Mobile Data for that time or use an app like AFWALL+ to deny any normal request unless requesting Public DNS like 8.8.8.8 manually.

What do you want more in the answer as you opened the bounty?

@SS-3.1415926535897932384626433 Preferably a more streamlined use experience, hopefully provided by some newer app.

I think Windows 10 should start integrating full wifi-direct discovery in the near future, as they have released full API support for it.

Connect your computer with virtual hotspot created by Android device.
Install any FTP Server app on Android device. It'll NOT give you IP of device for sure. :)
In your computer, find IP of Default Gateway of Wi-Fi network of Step 1 (In Windows, you can use ipconfig cmd command). Its the IP of your device.
Use any FTP Client software on computer. Use ftp://IP:Port (Port is generally configurable in FTP server app). Enter username & password configured in FTP Server app. Done!

After some testing with different settings I got it to work flawlessly, thank you very much.
For anyone else looking to do this: I used Android Wifi Tether (linked in original question) to start the network using Softap mode, connected to it with the computer, started an FTP server (some server apps might need you to enable 3G mode, even though 3G data isn't actually used, you can turn data connections off if you're paranoid.

@Nit You could use MobileAP feature of Galaxy S2. Its the easiest way to create hotspot..

I think the reverse answer should also work: 1) set PC as hotspot. 2) share folder (SMB or SFTP). 3) connect to PC hotspot with phone. 4) Use client like ES explorer to transfer stuff. But setting a PC with wifi up as a hotspot is tricky (infrastructure mode).

A simple way (once you're set up) that only requires a browser on the computer side is something like Airdroid, Webkey, or Lazydroid; which essentially turn your phone into a server, and which you can easily access from any browser (even outside your local network - with dyndns you can also keep in contact with your handset if it "disappears", w/o it you'll have to see the phone or find it's IP address another way).
Essentially with a server app on the phone that is linked to a dyndns account, you can walk up to any PC, and access your phone no matter where it is (barring firewalls, no signal, etc) This allows you to sound an alarm, get gps and other sensor info, blank/lockout the screen, view the camera feed, run/interact with any apps on the phone, and lockout the ability to reset (short of a batt pull). Some programs work better than others depending on the device, I have all three on my Atrix for full flexibility. I don't like to waste the processing on it, but you can also set up a persistent fileserv or even host a website.
for full functionality or even for some of these apps to work on some phones you need root access and to make the apps Superusers

You can try the following instead of using FTP:

Install ES File Explorer on your phone
Start a hotspot on your phone
Connect the PC to the phones hotspot
Get the IP address of your PC
Open ES File Explorer on your phone go into the network tab and hit new
Select LAN
In the server box put the IP address of your PC
You will then be able to freely copy or send anything in your shared folders or public folders.

This requires the PC having shared/public folders, presumably SMB shares.

Step 1:
Right click on the Start button and click on Command Prompt(Admin).
Type the following command to check for Hosted Network feature:
netsh wlan show drivers
If Hosted network supported: Yes, go to Step 2 else
if it's No, then you should update your wireless driver or your hardware.
Step 2:
Now to configure the Ad Hoc connection, type this command:
netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=your desired network name key=your password.
To start Ad Hoc network, further type this command:
netsh wlan start hostednetwork
If it says Failed to start, make sure your PC/laptop's wireless adapter is enabled.
Step 3:
Right click on the network icon in the quich launch, click on Network and Sharing Center and then click on Change adapter settings. Then again right click on Wi-Fi network and select Properties. Go to Sharing tab, check the box Allow other network users to connect through this computer's Internet connection, if there's a drop down menu select the Ad Hoc connection you just created and then finally click OK.
Now you can connect all your Wi-Fi devices such as mobile Phones and other lappys to this Ad hoc network and share files.
On a side note:
If you have Windows 7, then from Set up a new connection or network, one can easily create an Ad Hoc wireless connection through "Set up a wireless Ad Hoc". The above procedure is for Windows 8.1.

Get filedrop (it requires the person that you want to transfer the file to to have it) It works a lot like AirDrop but on any device. I use it often when I have to transfer files between my friends. There are two options on a computer, either their app, or their website

Doesn't support transferring files without already being connected to a wireless network.

I know this is too little too late, but...
I tried to connect my phone (LG Motion on Stock 4.0.4) and couldn't initiate a Ad Hoc network from the phone to my PC. I wrote this workaround using 'Fast File Transfer' app to establish the Ad Hoc network and proceeded from there.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2272529
With a little tinkering (maybe the wpa file hack or a custom ROM) I'm sure I could get it to work through Airdroid alone, but I find the stability of the stock ROM as inherently better and this is a quick workaround.

No, it's not too late, but you've also not provided any information. Answers on Stack Exchange are expected to be self-contained. Without the information at the other side of that link, there is nothing of value here. At the very least, consider what happens when that link no longer functions. Also, please don't "sign" your posts. Please read our [FAQ].

SuperbeamPro  has the ability to share file between android and pc through wifi direct

Taken right from the app description: "In order to use this app, your computer and your phone need to be on the same local area network."

@Nit updated the answer

This would be a great tool, but the free version allows you to conveniently move files only in one direction, from the phone to the computer. Also, the amount of ads is ridiculous.

I would suggest you an app named "Xender".
Xender for PC Windows is the ideal choice for all those android users who are looking for best quality transmission app to help them transfer files with blazingly fast speed.
In fact, this app allows its users to transfer files from one android device to another without requiring any of the usual connectivity options such as 3G, Wi-Fi, or even something as basic as a SIM card. Therefore, it can be the best option for transferring files without costing anything for mobile traffic.

Xender uses its own temporary wifi hotspot. I use it a lot and it's a mess, since it overrides the custom hotspot settings under Settings.

You can use WeLine, Connect PC or recently Xender, Transfer & Connect PC both created by  Anmobi.inc. It's a free app and uses wifi direct. Xender transfers everything you need between your phone and your computer, be it PC, MAC or Chromebook.

HIGHLIGHTS
☆ Simple way to connect your phone to computer by scanning
QR code. No cables!
☆ No need to have your phone and computer under
same WLAN as long as both are online with internet access. And you can transfer files both ways(i.e., Phone -> PC/MAC and PC/MAC -> Phone) wireless.
☆ Compatible between your Android phone and your PC or MAC
☆ Full access and management of phone resources including pictures, music, videos, documents, applications, files and folders.
☆ Supports management of phone SD card from your computer.
☆ Two way file transfer between phone and computer with high transfer speed under direct link mode.
☆ Play the music in your phone on your computer.
☆ Cast pictures from phone to computer and supports full screen display.

The question asks specifically for solutions for which you don't need to be connected, this doesn't satisfy the requirements.

Or you can use wifi file transfer pro apk
first create hotspot then open the app and choose the start button it will activate FTP on yoir phone and then just enter ip address displayed in your pc browser after connecting to your network

This solution is similar to #1 but requires no additional software on the PC side. Once set up its easy to use. (...running a FTP server on the PC can also represent some additional risk, unless you use SSH SFTP and its all set up correctly)

Install SMB client on Android. (AndSMB works)
Fire up hotspot on Android (typically an icon on the same drop down as WiFi, but have to first set up (one time) under settings->Wireless&Networks->More->Tethering & portable hotspot->WiFi hotspot->set up WiFihotspot. Adjust network name if desired, and enter a password.
Turn on the hot spot. Typically you will not be able connect to WiFi and have the hotspot on at the same time. When you turn on the hotspot it turns the WiFi connection off.

On PC

Use your regular WiFi to connect to your Android hotpot, using the password you created above.
Run from a command prompt ipconfig /all
Under the Wireless Lan Adapter Network Connection in use, note the IPv4 address, copy the numbers and dots only, not the (Preferred) part if its included.
Be sure you have file sharing turned on. For Win 10 its Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Network and Sharing Center\Advanced sharing settings Under Private drop down Turn on file and printer sharing. This means anyone connected to your local LAN via wire, or via your routers Wireless, can access files and printers on that PC, by logging in (as if they were at that PC).

On Andriod

In the SMB client, add a SMB server
Host - use the above IP number
username - use the username you use when you log in to your PC
password - typically leave blank and enter each time
domain - leave blank
local directory - typically use default
Remote directory - typically /users/yourPcUserNameHere/desktop
Save

Once set up, to use

On Android turn on the hotspot (typically just a button on the same drop down as Wifi)
On PC use WiFi to connect to the hotspot
on Android run SMB client
Use your PC password
Get or put files in both directions

After files are transferred

On Android, turn off hotspot. Typically you turn WiFi back on. It typically auto connects.
On PC, once the hot spot is off it typically auto connects to your regular local WiFi.

authors: صلاح الدين صديق

authors: ณ๊องฝน คาร์เนชั่น


text:
How to connect ADB over 3G/4G?
I keep seeing warning signs about enabling ADB over Network when you aren't connected to a WiFi network, but what if I want to connect ADB over 3G/4G ?
Whenever I try to do it with any of the conventional WiFi methods, it returns an invalid IP to connect to.  I even tried getting the IP with # ip addr show - but that didn't work, either.
Any ideas on how to do this?
Yeah, it isn't safe. But how does such a vulnerability get leveraged when the IP address is likely to change?

I don't think there is a way to create an adb connection to a remote device. The reason is works on wifi is that you are on the same local network as the computer that is connecting to it. If it were possible to do this over the internet the potential for abuse would be great.

Yes, it would, but any individual person has to turn on the ADB listener-- Or else, it is automatically turned on to only listen over USB-
You have to have a rooted phone to change the listener to listen over TCP/IP, so the security implications aren't that great.
Like ND Geek said, I really do want to set up this back door for myself and face the consequences should anyone discover it.
(Since there is not really anywhere for a rootkit to hide after a full wipe, I'm not really worried. Especially since I would only require a small window of time to allow the ADB connection.

Follow below solution to connect adb over mobile network. https://stackoverflow.com/a/77639411/22749706

Opening ADB on an unsecured connection is a major security risk.  On an unrooted phone, it gives access to your entire filesystem.  On a rooted phone, it gives access to your entire filesystem with write permissions.  The connection isn't encrypted and there is no password or key exchange to access ADB.  It's just a bad idea.  Beyond that, your carrier may not even allow traffic over 5555 (the standard ADB port), they may be proxying your traffic, or there may be other complicating factors.
Also, setting up SSH shouldn't be difficult.  I use SSHDroid all the time.  I can get a secure shell from any WiFi connection, and it works great for wireless file transfer.  You could set up a task to turn on SSHDroid whenever the device connects to WiFi and another to send you the IP.  Technically, you can even run it without WiFi, but I generally wouldn't recommend it, as it's still open to vulnerabilities, which would lead to problems similar to leaving ADB open (although somewhat less likely since SSH is designed to be secure).
Finally, there are a number of apps that are built specifically for locating your phone.  Motorola includes this feature with Motoblur, which can also wipe your phone remotely.  There are other free and paid alternatives that can do this as well.  If your phone is actually stolen, these are going to be much better than any back door you open for yourself.

Well, I'm not too worried about that.
But I want to know more about this security threat-
I mean, changing the port away from 5555 isn't too hard, but are there really creepsters out there constantly running nmap scans on GSM networks?
I mean, sure it opens my phone up to various problems, but I flash a new ROM generally every week--
I know there are still issues- but. I'm not worried about the security implications.
I hear having an SSH tunnel alone can be problematic unless you have a ridiculously high level of encryption.
Hackers see an SSH, and they want it.
Is what I hear, anyway.

It's not that there are people constantly scanning the cell networks, it's that there is absolutely no security in place to stop the one who does, and happens to find your phone.  As for SSH, you can change its port as well, and it's going to be much more secure than ADB just because it's encrypted.

Precisely!
I understand this-
And I realize you're right, I should just go with the SSH route.
But, I still want the answer as how to do this via adb.
And the fact that people aren't looking for ADB listeners-- IMHO- realistically is enough security.
I flash new ROMs often enough, anyway.
Also, since my plan is to only establish the connection for seconds at a time-
It seems secure enough for my purposes.
Additionally- from what I've read- it seems that malicious hackers spend more time seeking out SSH tunnels to crack than seeking out ADB listeners that aren't likely to even exist.

Most likely because the IP address returned was only valid within the mobile network, i.e. there is a NAT gateway. Even if you tried connecting from another device in the same network, your carrier probably have some routing rules in place to prevent devices from communicating to each other directly.

It would be neat to have a tasker profile or something where, if my phone is ever stolen, I can text my phone, making tasker enable ADB listening, and reply with whichever IP address my phone is connected to, and perhaps turn off after X seconds

Unsurprisingly, that idea wasn't new, there are many stolen/lost phone app in the Play Market. Prey and Plan B/Lookout, Where's My Droid, etc. Use those instead of trying to bend Tasker for it.

There is one that uses ADB to display a screen shot.
But I really wanted to do it an out-of-the-ordinary way.
I suppose making any of those apps a /system/app would really do the sort of trick I want it to.

But good point about the NAT gateway.
I really wonder, though.
With all the warnings--- how is it actually possible?


text:
Accessing the Android Phones SMS and other feature via Data Cable
Is there any way by which I can connect my computer to my HTC Wildfire S and access the SMS (read, compose, delete) without touching the phone? I am looking for something similar but no hope yet.
Please help.

There are a lot of possibilities to remotely administrate and use an Android Device from your PC -- including, but not restricted to reading/sending SMS. Take a look at the following apps/links:

Airdroid is simply to be installed on your Android-Device and can then be accessed via a web-browser ("browser-based"). Manages SMS/MMS, Apps, photos, videos, ringtones...
PAW Server has similar features, looks a bit more plain, but adds interesting stuff for developers (you can create your own add-ons, run a webserver with PHP and more)
Remote Web Desktop can be compared with Airdroid (web-based "virtual Desktop")
Phonedeck is another alternative, but utilizes the Cloud
Droid Phonecontrol also involves an "alien server" (routing everything via its authors servers)
LazyDroid Web Desktop seems also worth a look
Remote My Droid is another browser-based management app supporting messaging, browsing the Androids file system, and more
WebControl offers its browser-based services, including messaging, managing contacts and call history
if you run windows, MyPhoneExplorer might be your choice, as it includes all above features plus synchronizing your contacts etc. with your PC, creating backups, and more

I stop here, before the list gets too long -- you see there are plenty of possibilities around :)

Thank you so much Izzy, MyPhoneExplorer was the best solution for me. Thanks a lot. :)

You can use Airdroid. Not only you can use it to manage SMS but lots of other things like apps, photos, contacts and so on.
You can also use Mighty Text. With this you don't even have to connect your phone to computer or even leave it at home. This uses the Internet connection of your phone and your browser to send/receive and syns sms messages.


text:
I can't install or update Apps from Play Store: Error 905. How to fix?
Suddenly (after a Play Store update?) I can't install or update any Apps. I always get error code 905 when I try to do so. How can I fix this?

Uninstalling all Play Store (Market) App updates fixed it for me.
Go to Settings -> Applications -> Manage Applications -> All tab -> Google Play Store and uninstall the updates. This will leave you with an older version of the app, which is probably named "Market". Then you should be able to install or update apps. After a while, the Play Store update will be installed once again, but you still will be able to install or update Apps.

Just for clarification: the solution here is not to "free the occupied space", but to "reset the update". For more recent references, please see: Error 905 in Google Play / How to fix error 905 android – or even Youtube ;)


text:
The Way Numbers Are Displayed/Broken Up
I live in Jordan and just got a Galaxy SIII. I have a problem with the way numbers are being displayed on the dialer and when you actually press the green button to place a call.
Basically, the phone breaks up the number, including the prefix, by inserting spaces. For example, let’s say my number is 0787777707 (078 being the prefix of the phone operator). The phone displays it as 07 87 77 77 07. How can I fix it so it displays it as one series, 0787777707? My  iPhone has a simiar issue, but that could be addressd once you change the regional format. I can’t find that on the Galaxy though.

Possible duplicate: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/11022/is-it-somehow-possible-to-change-manually-the-format-of-a-telephone-number

Possible duplicate: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/22033/how-do-i-change-the-number-identification-format-to-associate-with-a-contacts

Possible duplicate: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/3527/is-it-somehow-possible-to-change-the-format-of-a-telephone-number-being-displaye

None of these solutions solved the problem :(

What language do you have set?

English UK... I tried English Singapore as well. Nothing changed.


text:
What is the matrix.txt file on my SD card? Is it safe to delete?
I have a file called matrix.txt at the root of my SD card.
It is a text file that contains the serialization of a matrix of floats.
What is this file? Can I delete it?

The Android OS itself is not dependant on any files on the removable SD card. If you have no apps that use this file, you can safely delete the file, or even format the SD card if you want.


text:
All Unity 3D games result in "Force Close"
I have a Huawei u8160 (A.K.A Vodafone 858 Smart) running CyanogenMod 7.2 Madteam ported.
All apps that use unity3d force close on their startup although they are compatible.
So I wanted to know if I should install something to make it work or any thing else?

This is because they're not compatible.
Unity requires devices with ARMv7 instruction set, your phone only supports v6.
I'm sorry but there's nothing that you can do other than buy a new handset if you want to play cutting edge games.
See this for the detailed specifications of your phone.

can you recommend another gaming sdk for ARMv6? and also corona SDK games crash is that is the same reason?

Yeah it's the same with Corona. I'm not aware of any other SDK of this kind besides these two. Older versions of Corona support ARMv6 though, but that version is only available for subscribers and no games are released with it.

Unity games work on arm v6 with VFP, most cell phones sold after 2011 that have qualcomms and arm v6 work with unity games, however, this is an issue with cyanogenmod as of 8-21-2012, but if you remove parts of your game and load a blank level, you'll see it works, so its just a missing piece, no clue if they will fix it or find it.

do you have a link to that known issue for CM?

Do you have a source?


text:
Will an Asus Transformer Prime bought in the U.S. work in Portugal?
I live in Portugal and I'm going on vacation to the U.S. in a few months.
I'd like to buy an Asus Transformer (Prime or 300) while in the U.S., but I don't know if the Wi-Fi or 3G will work in Portugal.  I only know for a fact that 4G doesn't work.
Can anyone help me on this one?

The tablets in Asus Transformer line (including TF 101, Prime TF 201, and Pad 300) do not have a cellular modem, so they will only work on WiFi.  WiFi is a universal standard and will work just fine in any country, provided that your router supports the 802.11 b/g/n specification.

Even if WiFi is a global standard, some channels are not available in all countries. A lot of devices for the US market ignore all 802.11a/b/g access points on channels higher than 11 which cloud be used in Europe without legal problems. Don't know if this also applies to Asus Transformer.

Good point, @Robert!  I don't know about the Transformer tablets, but most Android OS versions (even carrier/manufacturer skinned ones) give you ability to change the channel under Advanced options on the "Wi-Fi" settings screen.

+1 to this answer, I'm from Portugal and we've got all 14 channels here.

Networking
According to the device specifications for the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime:

Connectivity 802.11 b / g / n, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR

By a scan performed using inSSIDer 2.1

I'm from Portugal - Coimbra, and my 802.11 b/g/n is set to channel 6 to 10.
Other networks around my location are spread from 1 to 14.
According to the 802.11 b/g/n specifications, channels go from 1 to 14. Portugal has them all.
See this Wikipedia - List of WLAN channels (scroll a bit down to see the comparison table).
All flags are green to use that device in Portugal.

Power
As you've mentioned at the comments, US uses 110V, Europe uses 220V.
This is easily overcome by the usage of a transformer:

Amazom :: Goldsource® STU-100 Step Up/Down Voltage Transformer Converter - AC 110/220 V - 100 Watt

The wall plug can be used in the US or Europe.

The output is either 110v or 220v, depending of what you need.

OP may be able to set the region to change the wifi channels allowed, but YMMV on this one...

@Broam what I'm trying to say is that all channels are available here (Portugal), so the device may be limit to certain channels, but will always work! (I too acquire network devices overseas and never had any problems) :)

@Broam I had to search for the definition of YMMV :)

Thanks everyone. The only problem now is the different voltage in US (110V) and europe (220v).

@JoaoBrito I've edited the answer with a transformer. (solves the voltage problem for both locations.)

Note that most phone and laptop chargers that I've ever seen can cope with voltages from 100V to 240V, and only need a plug adapter to fit into the local socket, this is the case with the Blackberry and Galaxy Nexus phone chargers, the Motorola Xoom charger and the Dell laptop that I have on my desk at the moment. Have a look at the label on the charger itself, it will normally say something like INPUT: 100-240V ~ 50-60Hz (that's from my Samsung phone charger) which means you can use that charger pretty much anywhere.

@GAThrawn The charger is 100 - 240v. Problem solved. Thanks everyone.

Why the sudden downvote at this answer? Anyone?


text:
Taking screenshots on Samsung Galaxy Nexus with Jelly Bean
Apparently on Ice Cream Sandwich you can press power + volume down to take a screenshot, but this doesn't work for me with Jelly Bean. Anyone know how to take a screenshot on a stock Galaxy Nexus with Android 4.1?

You need to press the Vol Down and Power buttons together, and hold them for a second or so.
Some users report that it works better if you press both buttons simultaneously, as opposed to one after the other in sequence.

I tried that, and it didn't work -- held them down for a couple seconds.

Gave it a few more tries and finally got it to work. I just got this phone on Friday, so I just need to get used to it I guess. Cheers

If Chahk edits his answer, I can upvote it again -- marked it as the answer for now.

We cab deduce the fact that he has been doing it successfully in ICS so he knows how to do it. He has also mentioned stock ROM so custom ROM possibility doesn't exists. Maybe there is hardware button problem?

I was having trouble as well, but I had success while pressing and holding the down and power buttons simultaneously!


text:
Google Maps constantly requesting location
I'm running LBP Privacy Guard, and every 30 minutes or so I get a warning that Google Maps is trying to request my location.
Why is this, and how can I prevent this?

Have you Latitude running?

It is installed, but I've never used it..

Have you tried switching off "location sharing"?
It is under "Privacy settings" in settings menu.  Read more here


text:
What factors does PowerTutor measure to show energy consumption?
I am trying to find the impact of the signal strength on the energy consumption of WIFI in Android using an HTC NEXUS ONE. I am sending several files starting from 1 kb to 600 kb.
I use PowerTutor as a measurement application however the values are almost the same for any signal strength of wifi.
Can you please help me to find out if PowerTutor can reflect the signal strength effect and what factors in fact does PowerTutor use to show how much energy was consumed by Wi-Fi? Do you recommend the use of another android app to measure the wifi consumption?

I really question whether it's accurate in general, but if it is, there shouldn't be any reason why it wouldn't reveal the signal strength effect. Hardware measurement through software is difficult, particularly when not operating at the firmware level on hardware designed to make the relevant readings available.

According to the developer's documentation, WiFi signal strength is not accounted for:

The power states we have considered in the power model includes:
...
   -Wifi: Uplink channel rate, uplink data rate and packets transmitted per second.

They have a link to a study performed by the University of Michigan (who is, as best I can tell, also connected to this app's development) that looks to go much more in depth into their thoughts on the matter, should you be interested.
I don't have any better recommendations for you as far as apps go. Has the standard Android Battery Usage information not been helpful? I imagine if you set up a test scenario where you send a continuous steam of data over WiFi for an hour, then change the distance from the device to the WAP (i.e. changing signal strength) and repeat the process, you might be able to see a difference in the battery usage attributed to WiFi.

authors: Вадим Санюкович


text:
Recover deleted content from userdata partition?
So it came to pass, that Amanda did have a blonde moment and deleted all her threads in the SMS app by mistake. Yeah, "Delete all threads" probably shouldn't be quite so easy to invoke.
The phone's a ZTE Blade, with all its user data inconveniently stored on a YAFFS2 filesystem.
I have an old back up, but the SMS I need to recover are from since then. There are probably some on the SIM card, so I've ordered a SIM reader. I suspect that the twenty or so it holds are mostly network operator spam, anyway.
So, I curse my ineffectual backup plan and vow to back up SMS to GMail in future.
Meanwhile, I resolve to recover mmssms.db, or what's left of it.
First up, I connect adb and check the mounts, then attempt to copy the block to an image on the SD card:
dd if=/dev/block/mtdblock6 of=/sdcard/data.img

No such luck. I reason forcibly dismounting would be a bad idea, and probably won't work in any case.
So, I upload a statically linked copy of busybox to the SD card and use the conv=noerror option.
What I ended up with was a file that kept increasing in size until the SD card filled up.
What am I doing wrong?
Does ClockworkMod take an image in the true sense or does it just back the files up and pack them into an image?
Is there a YAFFS2 recovery program? (The two papers I've read make it seem feasible but I haven't seen even PoC code)
Any clues gratefully received/
Edit: The phone is rooted. Very rooted :)
Further edit:
Most of the messages found in mmssms.db-wal:
ls -al /data/data/com.android.providers.telephony/databases
drwxrwx--x    1 radio    radio         2048 Jul 17 20:16 .
drwxr-xr-x    1 radio    radio         2048 Oct 26  2011 ..
-rw-rw----    1 root     root         60416 Jul 17 20:16 mmssms.db
-rw-rw----    1 radio    radio        32768 Jul 17 16:18 mmssms.db-shm
-rw-rw----    1 radio    radio       628832 Jun 30 19:23 mmssms.db-wal
-rw-rw-rw-    1 root     root         60416 Jul 17 20:16 mmssms.db.xxx
-rw-rw----    1 radio    radio       132096 Jun 18 13:25 telephony.db
-rw-rw----    1 radio    radio        32768 Jul 16 22:14 telephony.db-shm
-rw-rw----    1 radio    radio       106928 Jul 16 22:14 telephony.db-wal

With any luck, SMS Backup & Restore will allow a merge.

Is your blade rooted?

@Mandy: Regarding your other question: Yaffs2 is a flash file system that has wear leveling protection for the underlying flash storage (it has a log structered data model where writes are not in place but instead go always to the tail of the "log" and old unused space is reclaimed from the head. Very simply explained). If you didn't write too much you probably can find older instances of files. By ignoring the part of the tail from just before the delete you could be lucky. Haven't done file carving for YAFFS2 so far tho.

Might help: How to recover a deleted file from /data partition?

The sms database is stored in /data/data/com.android.providers.telephony/databases/mmssms.db which is what you want to do.
Best thing to do, is this, do not plug in USB cable yet:

Reboot into ClockWorkmod Recovery.
Go into Mounts and Storage
Select mount /data
Plug in the USB
From the windows command shell or terminal, adb shell
Since you are in ClockworkMod Recovery, you are root by default, now do this cp /data/data/com.android.providers.telephony/databases/mmssms.db /sdcard/MySmsDatabase.db
exit out of the adb shell by typing in this: exit
Now your database is copied to the SD-Card.
Back out of ClockworkMod recovery and just reboot, the recovery will unmount /data for you.

At this stage your database is now copied across. And can be safely extracted via using something like SqliteMan. HTH.
Edit: The OP was interested to know how a dump can be done. - Read on :)
When you invoke this (with USB plugged in and within the adb shell)
sh-4.1# cat /proc/mtd
dev:    size   erasesize  name
mtd0: 00500000 00020000 "recovery"
mtd1: 00500000 00020000 "boot"
mtd2: 00120000 00020000 "splash"
mtd3: 00080000 00020000 "misc"
mtd4: 02580000 00020000 "cache"
mtd5: 0d700000 00020000 "system"
mtd6: 0cb80000 00020000 "userdata"
mtd7: 00020000 00020000 "oem"
mtd8: 00180000 00020000 "persist"

Knowing which partition is the key.. So for example from my Blade, I can see that userdata is on the partition mtd6, in which the actual partition information can be found within /dev/mtd/mtdX so its a matter of doing this using cat:
cat /dev/mtd/mtd6 > /sdcard/myuserdata.dump

And from there, taking the /sdcard/myuserdata.dump, depending on the filesystem used on that partition, it can be mounted via loop-back. The mileage will vary and of course, its a chicken-and-egg situation, in order to do all of that, the handset needs to be rooted.

That was most helpful, all (or at least most) of the deleted SMS were in mmssms.db-wal:
Many thanks for the useful pointer!

Now just need to convince sqlite it really does want to take the WAL file and revert those DELETE FROM statements to the mmssms.db. If I get a breakthrough I'll post the outcome here as this is typically what someone searching for a way to restore deleted SMS threads would be looking for.

here's an answer how to get a whole partition off a device. Needs Linux, an adb enabled CWM recovery and knowledge of your device's partition layout (i.e. whats the /data partition's device, /dev/block/?)

@t0mm13b: Yaffs2 cannot be mounted using the loop-back technique. Yaffs2 is a flash file system and depends heavily on a 'MTD chip', see Wikipedia for more. (It's due to some NAND's extra bytes per area that are used  for wear leveling and are not part of the real data). If you read the block device you only get the user-visible data, not the extra flags back. If you want to mount a YAFFS2 image, you need a MTD simulator (the Android SDK has one included, you can specify an additional .img for a VM (or overwrite the data.img))

Has this moved? I can't find /dev/mtd/* at all, under 4.4.4 on an s5 ... instead it seems userdata is mounted from this block device: /dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/userdata


text:
Troubleshoot/ Tune Android performance / speed
I have a Motorola Xoom (not rooted) and new to the Android world (at least as an advanced user).
I've installed several (around 30) games + several (around 30) apps. I've noticed that it became a lot more slow. Actually browsers can barely work (they hang from time to time). I noticed that several games and apps have active daemons running.
I wanted to:

Track the apps that are being used.
Track the apps that are loaded on startup (and eventually change it).
Do anything to improve performance

TL:DR; I want to troubleshoot / tune my Android installation.
Is there any application for that?
Is there any document recommended for this? (I'm an advanced user - developer)
Thanks!

There are a bunch of Tutorials around on the net on how to increase performance of your Android device (e.g. on LifeHackers here and here). One thing to definitely keep your fingers AWAY from are so-called "boosters" and (automated) Task-Killers. As rm-vanda already stated, they make things only worse; tasks should only be killed if they misbehave (e.g. are hanging, running havoc while eating your CPU and the like). Android manages its RAM fine, no need to worry about that.
As for the auto-starters, I can recommend AutoRun Manager, which is actively maintained and simply the best of all I tried (and I tried a lot).
To figure out what is consuming your ressources, a good candidate helping you would be System Tuner. While the free version simply lets you monitor activity life, the pro-version also offers background-monitoring and stores its data for later analysis.
Some other steps you could perform include:

from time to time, clean up caches (to remove old data and get back precious internal memory; helping apps in this segment include Cache Clear, Quick Cache Cleaner, CacheCleaner NG, and Android System Cleaner - the latter taking care for more things than just cache
Moving some rarely used Apps to SD (if they don't have widgets you are using) saves additional internal space.
uninstall unused apps

Well, if you are an advanced user, I would recommend rooting your device.
The Tegra 2 is brick-proof, so you have nothing to fear. The XDA forums can help you with rooting and whatnot.
But, if you have several apps that are simultaneously running services or processes, well, that's exactly your problem! I use Fast Reboot to clean up excessive processes.
It is also noteable that TASK MANAGER APPLICATIONS can cause the sort of problem your talking about. As of Android 2.2+ task managers are obsolete - Android handles task management for you.
For managing startup applications, you can use Startup Manager.
You can also see which applications are burning the most battery under your battery settings! This has helped me to find applications that are running rogue processes they shouldn't be running.

Android always handled task management. Also hot reboot is not too useful if you have tons of apps launching on boot.

It is different than a Hot Reboot.
Fast reboot kills those apps that are starting on boot.
So that's precisely what it is useful for.

So it's an auto killing task manager? Sorry but that's even worse...

As already said by izzy, autoruns manager is the best. Just disable unwanted receivers.
Additionally, here are some others tips:

say no to widgets
install android firewall.
disable internet access to unwanted apps


text:
My SIM is not recognized after installing Cyanogenmod; what should I do?
I've got a Samsung Galaxy S (I9000) which I purchased from the Spanish operator Movistar around two years ago. I have spent most of the day trying to flash it with cyanogenmod 7.
TL;DR: Installing cyanogenmod 7 was incredibly difficult
It has been ... quite and adventure. First I tried heimdall from Ubuntu (didn't even connect to the phone) then I tried from Windows, using its graphical interface. It had the "repartition" flag activated by default, when it shouldn't, so I bricked my phone. After lots of trial an error, I managed to install a ROM in my phone, using Odin as root, the stock cable, and a different usb port than the one I was using (go figure...). And from there I was able to install cyanogenmod as it says on the instructions. Then I had to reinstall them, because they were bootlooping.
END TL;DR
So, now I've got a Samsung Galaxy S with Cyanogenmod 7. But it complaints that it doesn't detect any SIM card. When it boots up, it says "No SIM card. Emergency calls only". Notice that it doesn't say "incompatible SIM", Nor it asks me for a password of any kind. It just doesn't seem to detect the card at all.
What steps can I follow to solve this issue, or at least get more information about it?

OK I feel incredibly stupid now.
I had entered the SIM card upside-down (the "cut corner" was looking "down" instead of "up"). Once I rotated the card 180 degrees on the z axis everything seems to be dandy.
In my defense I must say that the the I9000 SIM port doesn't enforce the "correct" SIM position in any way; it has a small engraving that I just didn't see when removing the card the first time, and that's all. But the card fits both ways.
I will close this question as soon as I'm able to.

It happens.  Welcome to the site :)


text:
Samsung Galaxy S3 - after AT&T over the wire update - google search doesn't find installed apps
I just purchased a Galaxy S III from AT&T, and only after a few days, I got a pushed, forced update from AT&T (not stating what it does, just "AT&T Software update" version: "V3_1205_2_2")
I didn't notice any change for a few hours, until I wanted to search for an app (menu - search)
Up until the update (still innocent till proven guilty, but looks more than circumstantial evidence) as in any android phone, the built in google search would search and find all installed apps,
However after that update (and again, it could be something else, but I can't think what it is) it stopped working. Google search (which is the built in device search) only shows web results and bookmarks
Am I the only one experiencing it? if so I'll just return it to AT&T and get another, as much as re-installing everything gives me a headache just thinking about it.
If I'm not the only one, then is it indeed a bug in AT&T's anonymous, rude, forcing itself on you, update?

Galaxy S3 dumb search update feature confirmed by Samsung, it’s because of Apple

Read more here:
It has been removed by Samsung working closely with Google and has been removed from carriers like Sprint as well. Apple pattented the universal search and was able to ban Galaxy Nexus in US. As a precaution Samsung and Google took the decision.

One of the two injunctions Apple obtained in the U.S., even though stayed on the second appeal, affected the Galaxy Nexus and was based on an Apple patent describing a “unified search” technology, which is currently used by various mobile devices. The Galaxy Nexus made use of that technology – the Google Search app displayed local results (stuff on the phone) and web results, when the user performed a search – and that’s one of the things that got it into temporary trouble.

Solution:
But you can get the search back by installing old quick search app. You've to follow this post in xda-developers.com for that. If you're not rooted you've to replace it every time you restart the phone ;).
Update from Samsung

Samsung has updated the software for the Galaxy S III as a precautionary measure to ensure that U.S. consumers may enjoy using our innovative products without interruption

So there is no way for me to search for apps? just apps?  Android 2.1 had a simple "search in apps" feature, which only searched apps, no web results, no patent infringement, they removed it. I guess if I wrote a new app manager with search in apps only I would make millions now on google play

Also - "used by variable mobile devices". It's used ANYWHERE. it's used in windows 7 search omnibox, it's used in Ubuntu, it's used in. well, Google... (searches places, addresses, and even apps) someone needs to change the legislation on software patents quickly, before someone makes a patent on typing on a keyboard and take it away from me

For the record (mostly for foreign googlers):
A working solution has been proposed here:
Is there an app for searching installed apps? (Dumb Search alternative)


text:
Messaging contacts color change
I got my Galaxy S3 about two weeks ago, and have been texting on it normally. Now, for some reason, when I look at my text log some of the names of my contacts are in blue, while some remain in white. It started with a few names becoming blue, and now the majority are. It's a completely random thing, but I'm just wondering why..

My girlfriend's Samsung Fascinate is experiencing the same behavior ... in her Text Messaging window, some of her contacts' name's are in blue, and some are in white. They change, for no discernable reason.

I see a discussion in AndroidForums stating that this behavior is a strange bug.  It seems that few experienced this issue for whom the color changed after receiving an emergency message.  They also say that deleting such messages restores the color. If you had received any such emergency message, can you please try to delete it?
Out of curiosity and the attraction of bounty led me to search for this issue else where. I do not have an S3 or know anyone having S3 to confirm this.

to the up voter: thanks at first. Could you please add a comment if deleting the emergency message did solve the issue? This will also help other S3 users.

The upvoter needn't necessarily own an S3 to find your answer useful, both Maarx and Emma haven't been here since you posted your answer (seen in their profiles)

It seems to be a bug concerning severe weather alerts. Simply delete the culprit message, then force-stop the messaging app. Everything should go back to normal. You may permanently disable the culprit messages from coming in by going to messaging>settings>emergency alerts and uncheck the boxes.
As confirmed on: http://forums.androidcentral.com/sprint-galaxy-s-iii/192562-text-messages-all-changed-blue.html


text:
Can I force a message to be sent as an MMS?
Is there a way to force a message to be sent as an MMS?
There are multiple reasons that MMS may be preferred.  SMS and MMS may have different fee structures dependent on plan, carrier, and country.  Additionally, some messaging software may allow for more delivery notification options for MMS than SMS.

May I ask why you want to do this? I am just curious.

@Flow In my tariff mms sending through the country is free whereas sms is not free

If you add a Subject to the message you're making, it gets converted to MMS format. Even if the Subject is empty, at least, that's what I know.

Promote that comment to an answer - a subject forces MMS. It's a silly workaround, but it could be done automatically with a replacement messaging application.

Another reason to do this is to ensure that the recipient receives a long message as one message, rather than several broken bits. This only applies for accounts with unlimited texting, of course.

As per Broam's suggestion above, I'm posting my comment as an answer. Hopefully some people finds it useful.
If you add a Subject to the message you're making, it gets converted to MMS format. Even if the Subject is empty, at least, that's what I know

Force the MMS
I've saw this comment you provided on your question:

@Flow In my tariff mms sending through the country is free whereas sms is not free

If this is the case, you can have a .jpg as a signature file, and attach it to every SMS you send. Since the image is a media component, your SMS will become an MMS, thus saving you some $$.

Original Answer
As far as I know, you can't.
An MMS message is a plain old text message with contents attached.
If you attach a media file, it will be send as a MMS message. Otherwise it will follow as an SMS.

What is MMS? Wikipedia

Multimedia Messaging Service, or MMS, is a standard way to send messages that include multimedia content to and from mobile phones. It extends the core SMS (Short Message Service) capability that allowed exchange of text messages only up to 160 characters in length.

I think there is no restriction in MMS protocol which forbids using it for text only even for less than 160 chars

@krvladislav The issue here is that if it is < 160 chars, it will be recognized by your phone and the network as an SMS, and will be sent as such.

@krvladislav The essence of an MMS is the multimedia component, that is, a file (picture, video, etc...). Without it, is just an SMS (text message).

Which is not technically correct. As SMS is inherently limited to 160 characters and MMS is not. Most modern phones will convert a long text into MMS or at least split the message into multiple SMS. However, some phones refuse to put the SMS pieces back together especially when crossing provders. Forcing MMS is needed to send long coherent texts. Not to mention that the written word is a form of Media.

I've found that another option, on phones or text messaging apps that support group texting but that don't force MMS when you add a Subject, is to create an artificial 'group' consisting of the person you're texting to .... AND yourself.  In other words, send the text to the target person AND yourself.  If you've got group texting support, doing so will force an MMS, and thereby bypass Google Voice.  Hence, your emoji will get transmitted in spite of Voice.  Once you send the group text, you will receive a redundant copy of your text.  At that point, just delete it.  This approach can become a little messy if you don't know what you're doing, but it works for me.:-)

Usually, messaging software determines the appropriate protocol literally for each message sent, based on its content.  To force the choice, you have the following options:

Attach a picture.
Attach a signature.
Add a subject.
If the messaging software allows it, manually switch the message to MMS.

An example of messaging software that allows you to add a subject/signature/switch protocol: Android Messages.

Actually with some cell phone providers it is wise to use MMS because then you can use your home WiFi, if you are at home of course or at a WiFi location outside of home.  That's because with some services you pay for every message but not for anything that goes over WiFi.
The test is simple, first check how many messages you have sent so far or how many you have remaining, then just turn WiFi on, then write a new message and include a small picture or something and send it to a friend or yourself.  If you send it to a friend it will normally take one message and if you send it to yourself it will take two messages (one ot send and one to receive) but if it really went over WiFi it will take zero messages so the original message count will stay the same.
Good luck to you.

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


text:
PTP (“connect as camera”) no longer working after update
After updating my Samsung Galaxy Nexus to Jelly Bean, PTP no longer works:
When I connect the phone via USB to my MacBook Pro and enable PTP on the phone, it does connect properly as a camera device and is visible as such in iPhoto / Picasa. However, it’s usually displayed as empty, even though there are photos on the phone’s camera, taken both before and after the update, which haven’t yet been synchronised.
Sometimes it’s not empty but the images that are transferred are merely thumbnails, not full-resolution photos.
Has anybody else got this problem? Is it a bug? Is there a workaround?

Incidentally, the import works on Windows using the Windows Live photo managing tool.


text:
Are there Andoid versions > 2.3 for my Sony Xperia ST25i (as of July 2012)?

Possible Duplicate:
When will my device get the Android 4.0 update (Ice Cream Sandwich)?

Like the question says, are there higher versions of Android for my phone? Will Sony release a 4.0 update for my phone?

Not officially yet. According to Sony, the Xperia U will be getting ICS in Q3 of this year.
That said I believe there are now some beta 3rd party ROMs floating around with various degrees of success.


text:
Manually upgrade Galaxy Nexus 4.0.4 (yakjuxw) to 4.1
I have a Galaxy Nexus (maguro/yakjuxw) with Android version 4.0.4. I saw the new features in 4.1 so i want to update, but i don't think an OTA will be available anytime soon. So, I'm considering manually updating. AFAIK, I will need to switch to the yakju firmware that gets updates directly from Google.
That being said, I have some questions:

Is the firmware the same as the OS? I always thought firmware is something like BIOS, UEFI, coreboot etc. and OS like Windows, GNU/Linux etc. But i have a feeling the terms are used slightly differently in the Android world. This is because the updates guides I found usually show how to flash firmware.
Will such an upgrade require rooting the phone?
Will this void my warranty?
I know a Google search will yield many guides on how to do this, but I'd appreciate it if an experienced user could provide a link with the guide he/she considers to be the best (most complete, safe etc.)

Not all Galaxy Nexus are made the same unfortunately, some are not meant to be as hackable as Google wanted the Nexus to be.

To be honest, i was kind of shocked to discover that not all Galaxy Nexus get their updates from Google. Pure Android and immediate updates were the main reasons i bought this phone. But what exactly did you mean by not as hackable as Google wanted them to be?

AFAIK Only the GSM Nexus phones, purchased from the Play Store, receive updates from Google. All other versions get them from the carrier (if and when they feel like it, and only after 2-3 botched attempts to roll updates out).

@DylanYaga Some regions which have the yakjuxw variant but no carrier customization get the updates from Samsung, not from the carrier or Google.

Closely related: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/13510/how-do-i-update-the-os-on-my-device

Firmware, in this case, means the OS, since it's a preinstalled part of the core system.
The method I used does not require root, but it's possible to root at the same time. I didn't.
This depends. In most cases, unlocking the bootloader voids your warranty if the warranty is read and interpreted letter-to-letter. However, you could install an official firmware and relock the bootloader to try to bypass this.

I've upgraded my yakjuxw with this guide's method #2. Everything went perfectly except for a few little tricks.
First of all, if your phone is completely unmodified, you need to unlock your bootloader. This can be done by booting into the bootloader as explained in the post, and running fastboot oem unlock, navigating to "Yes, unlock bootloader" with the volume keys and confirming with the power button.
NOTE: This will clear your phone, so you'll need to copy the necessary files to your phone after this!
After this, reboot once so that the partitions are mounted correctly in CWM later.
Now follow the guide carefully, and you should be able to upgrade (almost) without any problems. My phone got stuck while booting for the first time, so after 15-20mins I rebooted the phone (yanked the battery) but had no adverse effects.
At least my phone got the official 4.1.1 update today, so check for that after your first boot!

I found this topic useful: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1614827
and managed to update yakjuxw 4.0.4 to yakju
 4.1.1 very smoothly with user-friendly toolkit mentioned in the first post of the topic.
No need to root!

First, installed Drivers on my PC (using Main Menu command 1)
Unlocked BootLoader (Main Menu command 3), will clear all your data
Downloaded and installed Google 4.1.1 ROM (Main menu command 9)
Optionally: re-lock BootLoader with command 3.

Less than half an hour work from installing the ToolKit. Everything is menu driven.
Afterwards, phone was synced to my Google account, with all the contacts and apps reloaded. I was very impressed by the smoothness of migration.


text:
adb push and mount problems
I'm using Android 2.3.3 and I want to copy the iwconfig file to /system/xbin.
First I tried doing it with adb push using this:
adb push iwconfig /system/xbin
But in return I had: failed to copy 'iwconfig' to '/system/xbin/iwconfig': Permission denied
So I made my research and finally found this mount command that actually worked (most of them returned the usage: mount []... line)
mount -o remount,rw /dev/block/mtdblock4 /system
But even with that I'm still having the "Permission denied" line.
I also tried
mount -o remount,rw /dev/block/mtdblock4 /system/xbin
Buth it returned "Invalid Argument"
Any ideas?

if you are trying with an emulator, then you can first use 'adb remount' which remounts the system partition for read-write.  Also, see similar question: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6066030/read-only-file-system-on-android

First use mount command without any arguments. This will list all the mount points and its name.  Search for '/system' and it might have different mtdbblock#.  For instance, in my device it is '/dev/block/mtdblock1 /system yaffs2 rw,relatime 0 0'.  Hence I have to correct the mount statement to appropriate mtdbblock# number in order for the command to work.

I'm using a real device, I saw that question already, but it didn't helped, it accepts the mount command, but when I try to push the file, it still tells me that permissions are denied.

if your device is rooted, probably you can push the file to /mnt/sdcard and then on the device, either use a terminal emulator or file explorer (with root access) to move the files. That's what I did when I replaced two files in /system/bin.

@Narayanan, I did what you tell, I saw this:
/dev/block/mtdblock1 /system yaffs2 rw,relatime 0 0
So I tried:
mount -o remount,rw /dev/block/mtdblock1 /system
But when i try to push the file, it stills tells me that permissions are denied.

I finally got to run iwconfig, what I did was copying to SD card and made a link with
ln -s /mnt/sdcard/iwconfig /system/xbin/iwconfig
I just have a problem now, I can't run it, because of the permissions, but when I do chmod 777 iwconfig it does not returns an error message and does not change permissions, how can I change a file permissions without chmod? or which is the correct way of using chmod in Android?

Is adbd running as root?  What happens when you issue the adb root command?  Also, try simply mount -o remount,rw /system.  If that fails, try su first.

First, make sure adbd is running as root:
adb root
If you get an error that says something like "unable to run as root on production builds" it means that you must always issue su command in the adb shell to gain superuser privileges.  You will need to enter the shell before any mount commands will work.  You will need to push the file to the SD Card, then mount /system partition as read-write, and then copy the file to the /xbin directory like so:
adb push [path-to-iwconfig] /sdcard/
adb shell
su
mount -o remount,rw /system
cp /sdcard/iwconfig /system/xbin/
mount -o remount,ro /system
exit
exit

As you said, it returned "unable to run as root production builds", then mount -o remount,rw /system returns: usage: mount[-r][-w][-o options] [-t type] device directory. I solved this using: mount -o remount,rw /dev/block/mtdblock1 /system. cp /sdcard/iwconfig /system/xbin/ returns: cp: not found

Try busybox cp instead.

Or use cat - that works quite well as a useful alternative cat [source] > [destination]

I have a rooted device, and get root access with SU command in shell, but when I want to cp a file to /system/lib/ , I get this: Read-only file system

@Mr.Hyde Did you mount /system partition for read/write access?

@Chahk It's work. I had to type 'su' command. Thanks.


text:
Securing Memory Card?
What should I do so that the Memory card in my phone works only in my phone? Also, I should be able to connect my mobile to a PC through a USB cable and completely see/edit/organize the data on my memory card.
I want this to prevent anyone from gaining physical asses to my mobile, removing the memory card and getting asses to my sensitive data, by using the memory card with some other device.

I'm afraid that what you want to do is not possible.
You can come close by using EDS on the phone, but your computer will not be able to read the files directly. TrueCrypt will be able to decrypt the containers, but I think you might have some problems with handsets using MTP rather than USB Mass Storage.
Essentially what you want is for Android to support the "Secure" part of "Secure Digital". What you want to do is built into the SD card spec, where a password can be set on the card and can then only be read on that device.
For instance, the Samsung Focus WP7 handset locked SD cards to it, and these were not readable in other devices. Most devices simply saw the cards as unreadable, not even able to format them. Only Symbian handsets seemed to be able to recognise these cards were locked to a handset and were able to format these cards, but not read the data that was on them.

You could use encryption on the entire drive. This can be done with certain apps like EDS (which creates an encrypted container on the device, which requires a password to be opened -- but after that the file system is mounted transparently for all apps to access; these containers are TrueCrypt compatible). Some of these Apps (like e.g. Cryptonite or LUKS Manager) require the device to be rooted.
However, if those encryption does not work on the device filesystem itself (but uses containers), I'm not sure how an app will work with it if it expects files at hard-coded places. You can try and find out, as most of the encryption apps offer free trial versions.

Sorry, to best of my knowledge it cannot be done.  But however, you can only encrypt your content. Please see this post, which explains few alternate ways with which you can encrypt the files that are being stored.  MobiSafeFile is one such application that helps you to encrypt.

Answer with only a link isn't considered a good answer. If the link dies this answer becomes useless. Also the users has to go to different site without knowing if he will get what he wants there. A little summary might be helpful here.

You could use encryption on the entire drive. This can be done with certain apps like EDS (which creates an encrypted container on the device, which requires a password to be opened -- but after that the file system is mounted transparently for all apps to access; these containers are TrueCrypt compatible). Some of these Apps (like e.g. Cryptonite or LUKS Manager) require the device to be rooted.


text:
How to prevent apps running in background

Possible Duplicate:
How can I stop applications and services from running?

i've an Xperia X10 Mini. This Android devices is limited in hardware: a 600Mhz processor and 128 mb ram. So i'd like to install new apps, but i don't like to have a lot of apps running in background. For example, Facebook app, GDrive, Dropbox ... are great, but why 'damn' thei must run in background either if i don't want to use them at the moment ? This cause my device to run slowly, very slowly...
I know that facebook app for example, 'must' stay in background so it can inform me for a new 'friend post' .. but i don't need it!
Also Gdrive, Dropbox, Gmail etc: they 'must' stay in background to inform me for something.. but i'm not interested !!! If i want to check mail... i click to gmail.. if i want to check my friend post... i click facebook !
What i want is a responsive smartphone for basic operation (call, sms etc.), and i'm sure a 600mhz processor with a basic 'android'  installation and without background app  can go fast as a double core Arm with 100 running app !!!!
So, at the moment i disinstall them, and my device back to run good, with no slowdowns.
I also have installed Advanced Task Killer, but it kills apps each hour, or 30minutes: it don't prevent an app to run in background.
Does exists an app that kill others app each time they start in background, immediately ?

Your phone has 256MB of RAM http://pdadb.net/index.php?m=specs&id=2180&c=sony_ericsson_xperia_x10_mini_e10__e10i_se_robyn. If you kill a process every time it starts it will end up killing it several times every minute. That will cause your phone to slow down. Now it's only slow because it has shitty hardware.

Though there are apps around that would answer to your request (so-called "Task-killers" and "Memory boosters"), their usage is not to recommend -- simply because it would not help any (see Is it advisable to run a task killer app on Android). If those background processes are designed as services, they would simply restart - as would many other apps as well. Usually Android handles RAM very well, and those background processes should not use significant CPU power -- so on a decent phone this should not be a problem. However, on low-end and small devices with just minimal RAM and CPU, this can become an issue.
So what are your choices then? First, you could see to uninstall all those apps running background tasks -- provided you do not really need them. And, of course, if your device is not rooted, this cannot be done for pre-installed apps; but with ICS and higher you can at least "freeze" them.
If your device is rooted, your choices increase dramatically: you can remove (or freeze) those apps e.g. using Titanium Backup. You can use managers like AutoRun Manager to modify intent-listeners of apps (to prevent the start of certain event-based background processes, including those started on boot_completed). And you can configure thresholds for how your RAM will be used (i.e. when Androids internal Out-of-Memory-Killer should clean up your RAM) using apps like AutoKiller Memory Optimizer (don't mistake that name with a task-killer, it is not) or Auto Memory Manager.
Of course, you can also ask the developer to make those background services configurable -- and to leave it to you whether certain of them should be running at all. There's always the chance the developer sees reason and implements such a feature.

Autostarts can be mentioned along with AutoRun Manager for managing intent-listeners. Autostarts is free/open-source software, also available from f-droid.

@imz--IvanZakharyaschev Sure. But the last time I've tried it, it was so slow compared with the alternatives that I thought to better not mentioning it (though it might have been specific to that device). Meanwhile, you compensated that with your recent edits I guess :) And given that it's now FOSS (free-and-open-source; I just wonder about the payed version on the playstore), it's certainly worth trying.


text:
Finding a way to create a WLAN between tablet and phone
I currently own a nokia N900 and am waiting for the my pre ordered Nexus 7 to arrive. I was wondering because since android does not support p2p adhoc networking, as far as i know. Is there any way to create a private lan wirelessly over bluetooth? Maybe setup the tablet or phone as a wireless router?
Also, I am also considering modding a usb cable to be able to plug into the tablet and phone, because from what i heard the tablet also supports host mode, and linux supports IP over USB.
I just need an SSH connection between the two so nothing special as regards protocol usage.
Thanks, and I hope i got my question across clearly.

Android, starting from 4.0, does officially support a form of p2p wifi networking called Wifi Direct. A Wifi Direct-capable device can create an access point which any other Wifi-capable device can access. I don't know about Nexus 7 specifically, but Galaxy Nexus does support Wifi Direct so I'd presume that so is Nexus 7.


text:
Getting call options such as skype/viber again
My question is similar to this :
http://androidforums.com/samsung-galaxy-s2-international/473947-calling-dialer-viber-skype.html
But not quite the same. I've chosen phone as my default calling options, and I'm ok with that. Now my question is that, what do I press when I want to call a contact via Viber/Skype/Other app again? What do I press to get asked again?
Without resetting the default calling option, is there a such option ?

You want readers to go to some other site to get the details of your question? Stack Exchange's purpose is to create a set of questions and answer that are useful for more people than the original asker. At the very least, if that link stops working, this question becomes absolutely useless.

How do you expect to be able to choose another app when you don't want to open a dialog to choose another app? You'll have to call from the app itself (e.g. Skype) then.

I thought there might be some trick like clicking on the image of the contact and you get prompted for gmail, message, viber etc. but not skype

The option to choose what application to use when making a call (or anything else, such as open a webpage) happens when you don't have a default set. So if you want to get asked whether to use Dialler/Skype/Viber when you try to call a contact, then you need to clear the default settings for Dialler. You won't get the prompt otherwise.
There is no way to set this up on a per-number or per-contact basis in the Dialler.

well I know of the option to clear the default choice, but here is the deal I'm happy to have Phone as my default choice but I still want to be able to call via skype or viber contacts from my phone book. Now I've got phone set as default for all of them. But I still don't want to choose the contact type every time, want to choose when I want to and at the same time have the phone as default choice

Dialing from the app itself is the only option then.

Don't think of it as "Phone is the default action for this contact" think of it as "Phone is the default action for calling". You can either bind Phone to calling, or you can leave calling as default action free, but it works for all contacts, not just one.

Go to setting, manage applications, press the ALL tab and scroll down to Dialler/Skype/Viber go to options then select CLEAR DEFAULT button.
http://androidforums.com/samsung-galaxy-s3/590961-dialer-default-search-settings.html

The question clearly states "Without resetting the default calling option[...]".


text:
How to open .conf files with File Expert?
I have a rooted Android device running 4.0.3. I bought full version of File Expert in order to browse root file system.
I navigate to a .conf file and want to open it, but the app says There is no handler installed on your device for this file format. Would you like File Expert to find one for you?.
I select OK, but I get another error: Sorry, currently there is no handler for this format....
If I force this file to be openend as text file Open as text, and choose FE Text Editor, nothing happens.
Any chance to make this work or I'll have to buy another app for this?

Any chance you don't mind being suggested different app ?

@roxan Which app did you have in mind?

I use ES File Explorer,its free has tons of feature and if you go to settings you have option to mount root folder as well.

@roxan Can it browser root directories? I set Enable root but no root content appears. Does it require to buy root browser plugin as well as some other root apps?

I've set default location to / so every time I open it, I get inside /. No it doesn't need any plugin or so.

@roxan Funny, but I cannot see the content of root nor it ever ask about gaining root priliveges (like other apps do).

@roxan Found it. I was selecting the wrong permission. It's working now and I can see the files. I get said when I think that I paid the same features when I have this one for free. And the paid one did not work :((

While File Expert is a good app there are great apps out there.
I was hesitant to switch because I didn't want to install another app for ftp sharing, but I discovered Solid Explorer. It's the best File manager app for android, bar none.
It has an exceptional text editor with optional monospace font(!), size setting and line wraps can be disabled! And of course Root support out of the box. All for the great price of 0$. (Thought it's in beta, so that might change.)
It also includes FTP/SFTP/SMB/CIFS browsing, support for Google Drive, Dropbox, Box and SkyDrive. And so many other goodies that there's not enough space here to list it all.

I'll definitely give it a try

File Expert at the moment cannot open such files.
I recommend using the app called ES File Explorer! It's free and you just enable root option in the Properties, and you have root access.
DO NOT buy File Expert's root plugin as it's a waste of money!!!


text:
How safe is it to upgrade my galaxy s2 phone to Ice Cream Sandwich?
So I figured that since the s2 now has ice cream sandwich available, I should look into upgrading.
Doing some research on the internet, I see that it is actually impossible (or at least quite difficult) to go back to 2.3 if I have problems. I've also seen that there have been reports of Ice Cream Sandwich making their s2 have problems such as randomly crashing or the battery runs out really quickly etc.
So is upgrading to Ice Cream Sandwich like a fairly routine thing that ppl do and that I should just do it? Or is it actually quite a risky thing and I could seriously stuff up my phone if I did something wrong?
Also, if it is risky, is ICS worth the risk? Is there like a massive difference or is it just really just a few UI changes here and there?

If it is the official ROMs, then it is very easy and chances of anything going wrong are slim-to-none. You should just do it.
Downgrading should also be pretty straightforward if you want to stick with official firmwares - it would be a case of downloading PC Odin and the firmware you want from a site like sammobile. I have done this with a Galaxy Note which is from the same family of handsets.
Many people who have problems find that they can solve them with a wipe and just re-installing what they want. This has resolved battery issues for some.
ICS is worth the risk. Yes, there are UI changes and you will probably notice the phone being a bit faster to respond, but there are many other changes as well. For instance, some real-world useful features include Wi-Fi Direct, improved web browsing and proxy support. If you plan on keeping the handset long enough you may see some applications will require ICS as a minimum version as this is the first unified phone + tablet version of Android.

thanks, so when you mean by "official ROM", this is the version that Kies offers me when I connect to it. That should be the official version right?

Yes, Kies will offer you official ROMs. Unofficial ROMs would be 3rd party ones like CyanogenMod and MIUI and a bunch of other less complete ones. All of these would be downloaded from other websites, not offered via Kies.


text:
Is there a way for searching installed apps? (Dumb Search alternative)
I have been a victim of the infamous "let's turn off anything that Apple might have a patent for" aka "dumb search" on the Galaxy S3, and looking for a simple way to return my phone to the 21st century.
All I want is the ability to find an App quickly and launch it by name, without visually finding the Icon.

What I want is a set of features that existed in older versions of Android

In the Apps main screen, have the ability to search (currently works only for widgets)
If I find an App, I can press and hold it, and it will allow me to place it on any home screen

Use case #1 was removed and replaced by the Google Search app, which was as mentioned above downgraded to stop including local search (only shows web results)
Use case #2 was removed and has no workaround, I need to visually find an app to add a shortcut to it
I have searched in the Android Play store for "App Search", but found nothing, should I start writing my own app?

See this question (possible dupe). Thanks to the ubiquitous patent wars in the mobile space, Google & Samsung had to remove this functionality (at least for the US market)

@ce4 I don't think this is close enough to be a dupe, feel free to post the relevant part of the answer there as your own nswer here thought!

You can revert to your completely old behaviour. It needs some hacking though and might be illegal (decompile & recompile Google app)
Background: If you don't have root, you cannot install the old version over the new one.
What you could do: Install an app with the functions of the old Search app.
Idea: If the old app had a different package name, you could install it next to the new app.
How? Apktool!
Solution proposal:
Use apktool to decompile and change the whole namespace from com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox to com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox2  of a working old .apk (see .zip below, mind the 2 in the end), then recompile and install the newly crafted package.
Result: Old and new (broken) providers can be installed next to each other at the same time because they have a different namespace (.*searchbox2 instead of .*searchbox). Just find out which one is the old one and use that.
Benefits: No root required, permanent (cannot be taken away)
Drawbacks: You get 2x the same widget offering (1x from the old, 1x from the new), so you have to find out which works and which not
My test so far ('apktool' is an alias to 'java -jar /usr/local/bin/apktool.jar' on my machine, FYI):
apktool decompile GoogleQuickSearchBox.apk appdir
#append every occurrence of the namespace with '2'
find appdir -type f | while read a; do sed -i 's,uicksearchbox,uicksearchbox2,g' $a; done
#rename the directory to reflect that too
mv appdir/smali/com/google/android/googlequicksearchbox smali/com/google/android/googlequicksearchbox2
apktool build /tmp/bla.apk appdir
#Any sort of signing (jarsigner, signapk.jar,...):
java -jar /tmp/signapk.jar /tmp/certificate.pem /tmp/key.pk8 /tmp/bla.apk /tmp/gsearch2.apk
adb install /tmp/gsearch2.apk

Old solution
What would be nice to know: Does this only affect Samsung and Google's US customers?
According to Android Central, Samsung now deploys this update as a stability fix globally.
It's most probably this package, that got "updated":
com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox
(located at /system/app/GoogleQuickSearchBox.apk)
Having root is definitely required to revert the situation.
I'd however decide to get rid of Samsungs firmware altogether and install CyanogenMod for example (This might even be easier than getting root in the first place on the original firmware).
You might want to "reinstall" the unaffected version from the last firmware or one of a Euro firmware (if they're not stripped). For example, this archive from the popular Goo.im hosting site will most probably have a working (older) .apk that has the functionality you miss. It's a generic installation package for the popular Cyanogenmod aftermarket firmware that holds all relevant proprietary packages from Google (they had to be stripped off Cyanogenmod by Google's request some time ago). You can open it with any unzip program and extract the /system/app/GoogleQuickSearchBox.apk package.
That's how I would do it (using the adb tool from the Google SDK:
adb push GoogleQuickSearchBox.apk /sdcard/
adb shell
su
mount -o remount,rw /system
cp /sdcard/GoogleQuickSearchBox.apk /system/data/
mount -o remount,ro /system
reboot
exit

I used Application Explorer to generate this listing and see where the .apk is located:
App Name: Google-Search
Package Name: com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox

[...]

Source Directory:
/system/app/GoogleQuickSearchBox.apk

You can get the version of 'Google-Search' by going to Settings->Apps->All->Google Search, which lists the current version. Mine (the same as in the above mentioned .zip is: 1.4.1.299849)

The drawback is easy too: you can just disable the original app from settings :)

btw, you can use adb remount for remounting.

Is there an app for searching installed apps?

Yes. Several apps exist on the Play Store for the express purpose of searching through the apps you have on your device.
I've linked several ones here, and you can see which one you prefer.
Thing is, these apps were hard to find. I wanted this function too, and a simple search on the web didn't turn these applications out at first.

App Search Plus
Lightweight, optimized, simple, pretty. Full disclosure: I developed this app!

FAST App Search Tool
A long-serving and mature application that's highly rated on the Store. Really small.

Another solution that you might want to consider is to use an alternative launcher like Nova Launcher. You can configure a swipe down in the launcher to start an app search.

Google Search, aka Google Now can search installed apps on your Android device. Yes, it is super-slow, especially on older phones, but it includes among other things the 'Search Phone/Tablet' option. I was looking for a cleaner and faster alternative that does not search everything, including the web, but finally ended up using it nonetheless, because all alternatives I tried are half-baked or crash on my devices.
If you fiddle a bit in the settings, there are things that can be disabled under tablet search, e.g. disabling the Google Now feature makes it somewhat faster.
To launch it, simply tap the Google Search bar, or tap and hold the home button.

Apparently, there is now (was created after this question was asked): Conjure - Search your phone.

Conjure helps you quickly find things on your phone. Search for apps, contacts, files, calendar events, & more. Conjure learns from your usage to provide you with the best results.
Conjure's focus is on speed and it is designed to help you find what you are looking for in as few taps as possible. It supports partial searches, fuzzy searches, and abbreviations.

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


text:
Where is "Stay Awake" option in Ice Cream Sandwich on the Galaxy S3?
I just upgraded to the Samsung Galaxy S III (Ice Cream Sandwich) from the Motorola Droid Bionic (Gingerbread).  On my Bionic, there was a "Stay Awake" check box that made it so my "Screen will never sleep while charging" under Settings->Applications->Development.
I can't find that checkbox on my S3.
Where is that setting in ICS and/or is there another way to keep my screen from turning off in ICS?
Thanks.

It must be a SGS3 thing. On my Galaxy Nexus I find it under Settings | Developer options | Stay awake.

Related questions: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/13342 http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/12912 http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/6158 http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/23622

Not a direct answer to your question, but I use widgetsoid and add a toggle widget to either the pull down menu or my home screen to toggle "stay awake" settings.

Samsung removed "Stay Awake" from TouchWiz back in the first OTA for the Galaxy S1. Other ROMs like CyanogenMod still have it, and other AOSP based ROMs as well.
Be very careful using any kind of "Stay Awake" options with these devices that have the Super AMOLED screens. I used to use it when developing and testing the apps. I now have a "burn" in the screen from the time and the top bar.

Burn-in is not such a big risk as with older versions of Android since the Holo theme is darker than the previous ones. But a good point.

unless it is 100% black, anything that is on the screen in the "same state" can burn in.

At least in vanilla ICS it's in Settings -> Developer options -> Stay awake, correct me if it's not there in GSIII.
If it's not there, you can try a couple of apps that can do this, at least on older Galaxy series phones.
StayAwake
Stay Awake Widget

Thank you for your answer.  It was good, but not as good as the "you really don't want to do that" answer from Ryan.

My (non-rooted, stock) SGS3 has just been updated OTA to Jelly Bean 4.1.2, and the "Stay awake" option is now present under Developer options (second item, after "Desktop backup password" - the order of options has changed, I think).
Technically not an answer, because the question says "in ICS", but ... upgrade to JB!
(I haven't installed StayAwake or any such app, so this must have come from Samsung, so I assume they are OK with the risk of display burn-in.)

Do you have the "Developer options" menu under Settings?
If not, you may have to enable it.
Go to Settings >
About phone and quickly touch several times (about 10 times) on "Build number".
You'll see a toast saying "You're a developer now".
Then you'll find the stay awake option under "Developer options".


text:
Reset skytex primer pocket
My son has a Skytex Primer Pocket, which he put a pattern unlock on. He has completely forgotten it. I've been trying to figure out what I might do. There is nothing of any importance on the device, I'm perfectly willing to do a factory reflash if possible, but I just can't figure out how to do anything. Anyone out there know what to do?

i believe if you enter the incorrect pattern a number of times, you will be allowed to log in with your google account.

That works for a standard device, but the Skytex doesn't have google services, and thus you can't use google to unlock it.

I found that you should be able to do a factory reset by holding the power and home when powering on. There you should have the option to do a factory reset.

What I finally ended up doing was upgrading the firmware. I tried the home/power method, but it just wasn't working for me... Upgrading the firmware instructions are found on their site. It wasn't too hard to do, except for the fact that they don't seem to have signed drivers, which forced me to use a non-64 bit system to do the upgrade.


text:
Is there a (decentralized) open source "Google Latitude" alternative?
Is there an open source application which allows to share my location in real time? I'm looking for a fully open source solution, that is open source client as well as open source server software.
It doesn't have to be scalable or anything, I just want to share my location to whoever has the link to the application on my server.
This is not a duplicate of Alternative to Google Latitude? - I want a self-hosted application (on my own server), not on some non-Google third party server

OpenGTS provides fleet tracking, and there is a (paid) Android App on the market.  Given that it's open source, it's always possible someone (you?) could develop a free app as well.

Why is this answer accepted? While OpenGTS is cool for the server side of things, the linked client side isn't open source.

Because ND Geek linked to a paid app, but a free one exists too. Here: https://code.google.com/p/android-opengts/

EDIT: the project renamed to OwnTracks
Here's a good, open and decentralized alternative which appeared recently:
MQTTitude
A Google Latitude replacement based on MQTT

MQTTitude enables a device to periodically publish its location status to your MQTT broker. If you've previously used Latitude, you can think of this as a a decentralized Latitude.

Summary:

Whether you want to keep track of your own location or that of a family member (with their consent, of course), MQTTitude will let you do that in a safe way. There are at least two components you'll want to use: one of our Apps, and an MQTT broker.
The app speaks to the broker. Other programs (we have a few for you, but you can create others yourself) speak to the broker as well. The smartphone app PUBlishes location data, and the other programs SUBscribe to that data. A program can store the data in a database, send it someplace (careful with that!), or simply discard it (which wouldn't really be useful now, would it?).
For the time being documentation is, ahem, a bit lacking, but you might find something useful on our development site.

Links

Website
API
GitHub


text:
Android app keeps Screen on, how to let it go *OFF* against app settings?
The app is one of those applications that keeps the screen on and doesn't permit it to turn off. It's killing the battery and I shouldn't have to simply manually turn the screen off constantly. Every other app simply lets the screen turn off once I stop interacting with it like a good app should.
Hence my question: Is there any setting/app/widget/button/magic wand of any kind that will let me block this application from keeping the screen on. There has to be some kind of permission I can revoke to stop it from doing this.
The phone is rooted.

Have you considered using Tasker to kill the app after a set duration?

I'd rather not do that but that IS going to be my last resort if nothing else works out.

Could you share the application details. Perhaps there's an alternative that you could use...

If it's a full wakelock you cannot do anything except uninstall the app. Killing it will make it even worse, as the wakelock is never released then. See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6915013/android-wake-lock-is-lock-released-on-application-paused

In short, no, you cannot, write a review on the said app's entry on the Play store, and email the developer in question to get that to be made optional via settings within the app itself.
If the developer refuses to budge or dismiss the feedback, best to look for an alternative out there.

If you have a rooted phone, you can use an app such as Permissions Denied to deny individual permissions to apps. Keep in mind that doing so may break application functionality that depends on the denied permission, and if the application isn't especially well written, cause it to crash.

Sadly no, there is not a way to revoke permissions from apps at this time.
I would recommend leaving a review on the market complaining about this, or trying to find the developer's contact information.

A few months ago - WhisperCore was an app that could implement selective permission based rules. After the company was bought over by Twitter, the app has been pulled from the site and the market. Unfortunate - http://www.whispersys.com/whispercore.html

And here's another app - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lbe.security.lite  As usual, YMMV.

CM7 has an option to revoke permissions.


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Jelly bean voice search not talking back
I've recently upgraded my phone to Android 4.1.1 and I've tried the new voice search.
It mostly answers my questions correctly, but i didn't get it to talk back.
I checked the following setting: Settings->Voice->Speech Output. It's set to Always.
Does anybody else have this issue? Any ideas on how to fix it?

Voice Search/Google Now only speaks back to me on particular searches. What spoken search term(s) are you expecting a verbal response to?

Ask it "Who is the President of the United States?".  It seems to talk back to everyone for that one.

Have you made sure that your "Music volume" is actually turned up? Only then you'll be able to hear the talk-back.
To make sure it is, go to the stock music app, hit the "Volume up" key on your phone a few times, then go back to Google Voice Search and try again.

Thanks, it seems that was the problem. I feel pretty silly for not checking the volume, but to be honest i didn't even think about it. I expected that after a fresh install it will be at a high enough level to hear the voice.

This isn't working for me on Kit Kat. I've checked to make sure that the language is set to English(US) and all the other common advice, but still no luck. Weirdly, it was working this morning, so something must have changed, but I have no idea what.