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How to dump the full internal storage disk contents (for running photorec)
A friend was copying files off her phone and deleting them to clear storage space, and accidentally deleted the entire DCIM/Camera directory.  This was done on the attached Windows PC (presumably via MTP), not on an app on the phone which might have a trashbin.
The phone is now shut off, and I'm trying to figure out if there's a way to simply dump the entire disk, similar to how you'd use dd on a Linux system.  I'd like to take a disk dump so that I can run photorec on the dump and hopefully get most of those photos back.  The problem: how to dump the bytes of the internal storage?  Unfortunately it's not like a PC where you can just pop the drive out, or boot from a live USB.
The device is a Moto G7 Play.
Approaches I have considered:

adb pull /dev/mmcblk0 -- as I understand, this requires root, and her phone is not rooted
Booting into recovery -- I tried this on my phone, and adb does not see the device, so I can't attempt to pull/do anything there.

I have never rooted a phone before, and the resources I've found so far are mostly just random .zip files, which seems like a great way to get infected with malware.  Also, I'm not sure if rooting will wipe the phone in the process, which would be counterproductive to what we're trying to do.

An image of the user data partition wouldn't help you as your phone uses File Based Encryption (FBE), thus all file data is encrypted. Therefore photorec will not be able to recover anything.

How to recover a deleted file from /data partition on a rooted phone?

Its not that simple. The drive contents are normally encrypted.
The photos are normally copied to the gallery. Search the gallery and copy them back.


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How to Decrypt and Save the Files from a Phone
I accidentally wiped the metadata partition along with Dalvik/ART Cache and Cache using TWRP and now I can't boot into the OS. Internal Storage and USB-OTG were excluded.
I know that the data is still on the phone, but that it's encrypted, so I've already tried the following:

Inside TWRP > Wipe > Advanced Wipe, I tried to Repair or Change File System, but no luck there.

I connected the phone to a PC and used these adb commands to try to backup the raw data:

adb pull /dev/block/by-name/userdata
adb pull /dev/block/by-name/metadata

This backed up everything (128 GB of userdata - the whole phone memory, and the metadata partition which is 16 MB), so If I'm correct, this should be my data, but it's encrypted. Since the metadata partition was wiped, I now have no access to the keys that are used to decrypt this data.
My question is, how can I decrypt this or mount it somewhere, either on the phone or Windows/Linux? What do I do next with the files that I backup up?

I have also tried to flash a newer version of the ROM using fastboot, so that the phone will hopefully boot, but that didn't help either. Probably because the Internal Storage says 0mb, I got lots of errors while trying to flash it with fastboot.

Is there any way to backup my data (files, photos...)? Either by somehow fixing what I did wrong and booting into the OS or just by connecting the phone to a PC and using adb or any other method?
When I boot into TWRP, the Internal Storage says 0mb and the TWRP built-in File Manager can see some folders and files but cannot access all of them. For example, it doesn't show anything inside the data folder, which is what I care about saving.
But inside TWRP > Mount, there's an option that says Decrypt Data. When I click on it, it asks for a password. What is this password, and where is it stored?
It’s not the PIN used to unlock the phone, so what is it?
If there’s no way to find out the current password, how can I find it when the phone is fully working and decrypted, so I have it in case I need it later?
The phone is Poco F3 with Android 13 Custom ROM from Xiaomi.eu, rooted with Magisk v27 and alioth TWRP version 3.7.0-12-POCOF3-v7.9_A13, if that helps.
I know I can flash a new ROM and boot the phone. But right now, I don't care about fixing the phone, just about my data, and I just want to save it if possible in any way? It may even be encrypted, doesn't matter, as long as I can decrypt it later and access it.

Please do not crate a new, very close question to your last post. Instead edit your last post and add new information if you want to extend it.

source: Stack Exchange

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

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exporting saved wifi hotspots and passwords
In my android 10 phone I am trying to find the file that contains my saved wifi hotspots and passwords, but cannot locate it.
In linux its common to see the wifi ssid and passwords stored in wpa_supplicant.conf or /etc/network/interfaces
ive tried via adb and also checking the userdata parition.

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


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Trouble connecting Windows 11 PC to Android 11 phone
Are there any special tricks to connect and Android phone to a PC?
Below's what I've tried so far, and without success.

On my Android phone (Android, version 11), the bluetooth is on and discoverable.

On my PC (Win. 11), I can see my phone's bluetooth name when going to "Bluetooth & devices" -> "Add device".

But when I click on my phone's name, it shows a message in red: "Try connecting your device again."

On my Android phone, I can detect my PC's name on bluetooth, but when I tried to connecting, the PC acknowledges a device, but doesn't go beyond that and ends in failure.

Additional note: On the same PC, multiple other bluetooth devices (i.e.: controllers, wireless headphones, etc.) have connected successfully. So I know my PC's bluetooth adapter works. My phone also connected to other bluetooth devices, so I know my phone's bluetooth adapter also works.

What's the purpose of connecting your phone and the PC?

To share my Android phone's data connection over Bluetooth to the PC via the "Bluetooth tethering" function.

So your PC has Bluetooth and no WiFi? Or you don't have a USB cable? BT is ridiculously slow compared to WiFi or able tethering.

That's alright, I'd like to get it working anyways. It looks like the answer so far is "no, in this situation there's no way to connect to bluetooth", which hopefully will not be the case.

Interestingly, on another Windows 10 PC, there were no problems connecting by bluetooth from the PC to the Android phone. Not sure how or why, perhaps it has something to do with either Windows 11 or the specific bluetooth hardware used?

Yes, regardless of the previous considerations it should be able to connect. It must be something specific to the PC.


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How to edit the outlines of a PDF file?
How can I add, delete and edit the outlines (also called table of contents in Adobe reader, not bookmarks) of a PDF file, while viewing it?

According to this site "outline" is just the term used in context of PDF files for bookmark. PDF bookmarks are a hierarchical list of links to certain parts of a PDF file. Bookmarks are saved in the PDF file itself. Most PDF editors can create or edit such bookmarks.

@rober This is not a post about terminology . In case that you can't differentiate the two, outlines are stored in PDF file, and bookmarks are not but in the app. "Bookmarks are usually used to mark pages temporarily whenever you want to see it again.
Outlines are like Table of contents which consists of topics and subtopics. Most of text books PDFs come with built-in outline.
You can't include topics, subtopics and sub-sub topics in bookmarks. It can only be included in outline." https://www.reddit.com/r/notefulapp/comments/1cmc5d0/bookmarks_vs_outlines/.

My aim wasn't start a discussion about terminology. It was simply a try to say - this question is about "outlines" but most of you you (including me) would simply call this bookmarks (and AFAIR this is also the name Adobe uses in their PDF tools). I am still not sure what it is that you call a bookmark in the context of PDF files/PDF reader.

Also posted on Ebooks.SE: https://ebooks.stackexchange.com/q/9359/4517


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Recovering data from a phone that won't boot
Recently my phone decided to brick itself for no reason. Turned the screen off and it didn't turn back on anymore. At first I thought it was a dead screen but after a few hours of trying to force reboot the screen now shows up, albeit stuck in the boot screen, as if a boot loop.
Brought it to a repair shop and they said something along the lines of whatever inside is used to make the display and touch work - that thing is now dead.
Now since the phone won't boot and fastboot doesn't work either (stuck on the screen with "FASTBOOT" when I try to), is there any way to access files on the device without it being on?
ADB didn't recognise the phone because it won't even boot. For information, it's a Xiaomi Redmi Note 10, stock ROM, not rooted, never dropped nor had it broken and repaired before. Was in perfect condition until this happened. Been using for 3 years.

"is there any way to access files on the device without it being on?" - No.  Hardware-Backed Keystore relies on a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) to store cryptographic keys

is there any way to access files on the device without it being on?

No, there isn't. All the data on modern Android devices is encrypted, and the encryption keys are kept in the Hardware Keystore. Getting the keys out of there so that files can be decrypted requires the device to be running, so that the Trusted Execution Environment can provide the keys.
All this is done so that your data is secure if your phone gets into the hands of criminals (or police/intelligence agencies - the threat is quite similar).

I don't think this is necessarily true for a Xiaomi. On most versions of Android I've used except US vendored ones, encryption is optional and up to the user whether it was turned on. If there is no buried key, extracting the data may be practical.

for sure every Xiaomi Android device is encrypted. it's not even possible* to disable encryption. you are talking about something different.

The only feasible method of data recovery is probably to fix the cause of the problems with boot process. You could remove the eMMC (“ROM”/“storage”) chip, use specialized hardware to perform modifications on it (the bootloader and the operating system are not encrypted), but you still have to move the memory chip back to the original board to access encrypted data. This would be cumbersome and expensive process. Additional complication is that the files used in the boot process are signed – you can't arbitrarily modify them.
Unless data on the device are worth some tens of thousands EUR/USD or more, it is simple too expensive to bother with this.

As always, when using any computer system or storage device that you use to store valuable data, including a phone, these three rules apply:

backup,

backup (frequently), and …

backup.

Many people realize the real importance of backups only when it's too late.

Unfortunately, without the device running, accessing encrypted data is nearly impossible due to modern Android security.
Your best bet might be fixing the boot process flashing the stock ROM or repairing hardware could help. If the storage chip itself is damaged, recovery gets expensive and tricky.
This is a tough reminder of the importance of regular backups


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Stuck on Recovery Mode 3.0 screen in Redmi Y2
My Redmi Y2 phone was working fine for long time but suddenly I found that "VOLUME UP" key is not working so I tried to restart the phone but it got stuck into Recovery 3.0 screen. It only gives 3 options:

Reboot
Wipe Data
Connect with MIAssistant

Pressing on "Reboot" displays two option:

Reboot to System
Go bak to Main Menu

Pressing "Reboot to System" reboots device and again goes back to "Recovery 3.0" screen, this keeps going on. I don't want to loss data so I didn't try "Wipe Data" option. Its not moving out of this screen no matter how may times I reboot it. I tried FAST BOOT by pressing (VOLUME DOWN + POWER) button but it has no effect, it shows logo for a moment and ended up to same "Recovery 3.0" screen.


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Help with flashing android os onto an sd card and then onto a phone
I don't even know where to start. I know that I need an SD card reader and my laptop. What size SD card do I need? How do I put the OS onto the SD card? And then how do I put it into the phone? Can someone help me with the right steps?

Have you googled it?  If you have found the OS you want, it will come with instructions.

Android phones don't support booting firmware form sd-card. The only use of an sd-card when installing a firmware is to temporary store the firmware ZIP file there and then boot into recovery ROM and install it from sd-card to the main flash memory. But in general firmware the possible ways to flash a firmware depends on the phone model respectively the phone manufacturer and the used SoC.

Thats exactly what i mean to do, store it as a zip file and boot into recovery ROM and install it from the sd card. I'm not sure what to do to get it onto the sd card and how big of an sd card i need to put it on. The phone is a one plus nord N100

And yes of course, I have googled it. I'm just not getting the answer i'm looking for. I need step by step instructions, also, the phone ir frp locked. not stolen, the person i bought it from didnt tell me it was google locked to their google account and they wont answer me with the info to unlock it.


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How to edit or modify the Data folder on Android 14 (Xiaomi 14T)?
I know it sounds like a recurring topic, but I would really like to know how to modify the contents of the Data folder in Android 14. I am currently using a Xiaomi 14T that has HyperOS (1.0.8.0.UNEMIXM) and Android 14 UP1A.231005.007.
I have used tools like Shizuku and they have not worked for me, nor can I get that menu to appear to give permissions to a certain file explorer, since the Data folder simply does not appear. For example, I have used Super File Manager Explorer, which allows me to see the Data folder, and all the content of the applications but it does not let me edit, delete or add anything. I do not want to become an expert in programming, because I am not, therefore I will not try to move or do strange processes that can damage my device, also I do not want to Root it because I have no idea how to do it, nor because of the issue of updating it manually and that method is known to leave smartphones in a loop, so Root is not an option.
Does anyone know of a safe way to edit the data folder? I'm not very experienced in this area, but I thought of deleting the default "Files" app on the device, but I'm sure that would cause more than one problem. As I said, Shizuku didn't work for me with either the wireless or wired method.

Please tell us the exact path of the "the Data folder" you are talking about (the full Linux path in the file-system). Android has multiple places where "data folders" are stored each with different permissions.


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How to list all apps on a device registered to receive FCM push notifications?
Using a recent version of Android.  Solutions requiring root are okay.

Should be possible by scanning the AndroidManifest.xml of all installed apps. Firebase enabled apps should have a <service> entry with an action <action android:name="com.google.firebase.MESSAGING_EVENT" /> as mentioned here: https://firebase.google.com/docs/cloud-messaging/android/client#manifest

https://public.addonsdetector.com/detected-sdks. I'm not affiliated.


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Performance of Android 2.2 vs. earlier versions
One reason that I haven't switched to Android in the past is that it has seemed sluggish when I've tried phones that run it.  I see that Google claims performance improvements of 4x to 5x over previous versions, but those numbers are based on benchmarks, not on real-world use.
Does anyone have any information about how Android 2.2 affects typical smartphone usage.  Not just making calls -- scrolling through a long contact list, reading emails, browsing the web, navigating photo albums, playing games?  Ideally, a side-by-side comparison of device X running 2.2 and an earlier version.

@Evan and others: point taken, edited to narrow the subjectivity gap.

This question is easily answered with a proper review that compares the Nexus One running 2.1 and Froyo.

This page has a couple of benchmarks that compare not only a Nexus One running 2.2 vs. one running 2.1, but also includes iPhones and the iPad. In both cases, the Nexus One running 2.2 outperforms the 2.1 version by over 2x.

Excellent.  Just the kind of information I'm looking for.

Google claims performance improvements of 4x to 5x over previous versions
No they didn't claim such, what they claimed is that JIT compiler can give 4x to 5x improvement on compute-bound process (CPU-bound process; processes doing heavy computations). If you're scrolling on a long contact list, browsing web or gallery, etc you're more likely to be I/O bound by slow network or slow disk rather than CPU-bound, and JIT only helps very little in those cases.
Outside of benchmarks and games, it is in fact very rare for applications to be CPU-bound.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/


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How can I install Voice Search on Cyanogen 6 RC3
Whenever I try to install Voice Search I get "install failed" error in the notification bar. Supposedly it has something to do with signatures but I know better than to ask Cyanogen about it. Any ideas?

I spotted this advice on the post on the Google Mobile Blog announcing the new Voice Actions. At least one person in the comments claimed success.

Just run the following commands to
  uninstall the old system apps if you
  use a custom rom.
adb remount
adb shell rm /system/app/GoogleQuickSearchBox.apk
adb uninstall com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox
adb shell rm /system/app/VoiceSearch.apk
adb uninstall com.google.android.voicesearch
Then they will install just fine from
  Market (from the US Market).
  MarketAccess set to TMO US will allow
  you to find them.

I was afraid of that . . . not a big fan of commands like "adb shell rm /system/app/VoiceSearch.apk" but I'll try it. Worst case is I have to wipe and start over, right?!

Okay, that worked. Had to install "Voice Search" and "Google Search" from the market after deleting and uninstalling per the directions above. For those that don't know you need to get the SDK, install the Android USB Driver, and turn on "Debug Mode" on your phone so you can run ADB commands from the command prompt in the tools directory. I guess if you have Cyanogen you know all that already. Nevermind. But I did have to delete the search gadget and then re-add it to my home screen. BAM! Voice Search heaven. Can't wait for it to fail when I show my iPhone friends!

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/


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My HTC Hero Upgrade to Android 2.1 has slowed it down!
I went ahead and let my phone update itself and since then it's been realllly SLOW. Phone calls take 5-45 seconds to connect, which is beyond aggravating. Apps don't run as fast as they use to. And I am constantly reconnecting the Mobile network because it keeps losing it. Anyone have similar and get around it??
Thanks,

A brief post about speeding up a HTC Hero.
Are you with Sprint by any chance?
This thread and this thread have at least one suggestion:  Have a look in Menu > settings > About phone > System updates > HTC Software update. Apparently there is a .6 firmware patch. Unfortunately, most of the posts are not reassuring. Perhaps time to upgrade/change phones?

It is a sprint phone, and other posts I've read on that site suggest calling sprint, they may replace it. I guess into the call queue I go!  Thanks!


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Is there a way to create groups of contacts?
On my old Nokia phone I was able to create groups of contacts. I found this very useful and had groups such as Co-workers, Neighbors, Doctors, Friends, Family, etc.
Is there a way to do this on my Moto Droid? The only way I've found to group contacts so far is to mark them as Favorites, or create custom folders with direct contact shortcuts on my home screen.

Sunpech is correct about that. However, it doesn't quite work in the way you are envisioning it. Your groups in your Google contacts don't sort your contacts in your phone, instead you are simply able to specify to Android which of those groups you want synced. When you are in your contact list (in Android) you can hit Menu and go to "Display options" and choose your preferences there. The actual appearance of the "Display options" screen will vary depending on your version of Android, but ultimately, you will be able to choose which groups to include in your contacts, and even specify to only display those with phone numbers.
I hope this clears things up for you.

I don't know of any way to do that on the Android device directly.  But you can create groups within your contacts in Gmail, and it will sync down to your device.

I have my Gmail contacts organized into some groups, but I don't see them in my contacts list on my phone. Where do the groups show up?

Matt, Contacts GroupU is a free app that let's you create groups and sync w/ gmail groups. I stopped using it months ago because it turned out seperating my contacts wasn't that impoertant to me afterall. I do recall that it was a little quirky at first which caused some duplicate groups. Play around with it and figure out the difference between groupU groups and synced groups before you spend time getting things organized.

I was going to check this out, but there were enough negative comments from people having issues that were serious enough that I didn't think it would be worth the risk. Thanks for the suggestion though!


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Is there a way to turn off backlit buttons on Motorola Droid?
The four buttons at the bottom of the Motorola Droid (back,menu,home,search) are backlit when its dark and the phone is unlocked. The brightness of the buttons' back light doesn't adjust with the brightness of the screen, which can be a real problem when I'm using an app at night. Is there any way to turn off or dim these buttons?

I have the same problem with my HTC Hero and have searched for a solution in the past.  About a month ago I came to the conclusion that there was no easy solution.

I find this especially annoying when the phone is in clock mode in my dock (Moto Droid, 2.2).

Good question.  I'm surprised no one has figured this out yet.  Make sure to report back if you find the answer somewhere else because I'd love to know.

There's the LEDs Hack app if you've got the root thing going.

That's no longer available on the Android market.

There's an app called Screen Filter that will allow you to switch the menu button backlight off.

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


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What podcast app supports podcasts that require basic authentication?
I subscribe to podcasts that require paid subscriptions.  It works fine on iTunes, but I can't find a (free) Android app that supports Podcasts that require basic authentication.  Does anyone know of one?

BeyondPod supports Feed Authentication.  I use the pro version which costs $7, but if you choose not to go pro there are only a few limitations.  The free lite version should still handle Authentication.


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Google voice for voicemail
When a phone is configured to use Google Voice for voicemail, his does that work?  is the call routed to VM by the phone, or is the setting changed at the carrier too?

It's routed by the carrier so even if your phone is off it will get appropriately routed to Google Voice.  With non-android phones you have to type the carrier specific activation code into the keypad and hit send to make the change at the carrier level.  The Google Voice Android App takes care of this for you with a simple toggle in the settings menu.


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How to disable startup and shutdown sound on Samsung Galaxy S?
Is there a way to disable the sounds on phone startup and shutdown? When I had JF3 firmware, there were no sounds, but now on JM1 the sounds are there :(

Btw, it seems that when I still had the old firmware, I somehow managed to use the way explained in the accepted answer unknowing that it had anything to do with startup/shutdown sounds. I just had forgotten what I did :)

In System -> Sound and Display -> System volume
you can set it, unfortunately the power on/off sound is also tied to the touch feedback sound (ie you press a button, hear a sound). If that's not a problem, turn it all the way down and problem solved..

Oh yeah, this was just what I was looking after! I don't want any touch feedback sounds anyway! :) THX!

If you find this answer unuseful please downvote it

Try Silent Boot from the android market. It automatically mutes your phone when you shutdown.

But it doesnt work all the time.

Does not remove the shutdown sound.  The silent boot documentation mention it.

In this post at Android Central, the suggestion is:

Open a root explorer, go to /system/media/audio/ui
Rename PowerOn.ogg to PowerOn.ogg.disabled, PowerOff.ogg to PowerOff.ogg.disabled

This requires root.

This seems promising, but in my HTC E9 phone (Android 5) these files don't exist :(

Try SGS Tools from the market. It has the option to mute startup and shutdown sounds, or set custom ones.
Note: Works on a rooted device only.

You can also just hit your volume key, and hit the settings button that shows up on the right. You can turn the system volume up and down from right there.


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HTC People Widget: Changing Pictures
Is there any way to change or set the source for the pictures on the People Widget when you have linked contacts?
Example: I have my wife as one of my contacts.  I have her Facebook/Twitter accounts linked to my entries for my GMail and Exchange contacts. I've added a picture taken by the on phone camera to the Exchange contact entry but the widget uses her Facebook profile picture as the display picture.
Any way to override this behavior?

Yes. From the widget, select the contact name (not image). This brings you to the contact info. Select the chain link in the upper right hand corner (it should say Linked in your specific example). Finally, select the image in the upper left corner. You can select the image source from there. I tested it on the HTC incredible.
EDIT: I was originally referring to the Favorites Widget but basically, the Favorites Widget is just an example of the People widget which can be the any-group-at-all widget.
(I apologize if this is obvious, caffeine has not fully sunk in yet.)


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Can you setup android gmail to play a sound when an email from a certain email address comes in?
I have my work emails forwarded to my phone and I'd like to be able to give them precedence over emails to my gmail. Is this possible? Or can I setup my work email using POP and then use a different tone for those?

Not with the Gmail app that comes with the phone, no. But, if you really wanted this, you could do it like so:

Create a new Gmail account, like emailsfrommyfriendjohnsmith@gmail.com.
Setup the new Gmail account in your Android phone, and enable notifications.
In the Gmail web interface, set up a filter in your current Gmail account that has all email from your friend forwarded to the new email address. (You will still see these emails in your regular inbox.)

Voila!

Somewhat depends on what your work email server looks like, but I have a Gmail account, two Hotmail accounts, and an MS Exchange account on my Droid and there is an option within each Accounts settings to turn on/off "Email notifications" and to choose which ringtone is used for that notification.  So, by that token, you could have your Gmail emails sound off with the default notification and have your work email play any crazy sound you like.  Does that help or am I misunderstanding your question?


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How can I change the default currency key on Swype keyboard?
In Swype Settings I have the language set to "UK English" yet for some reason when I'm typing the currency symbol (long-press on s) is a dollar sign ($) not a pound sign (£), if I press SYM the dollar actually has its own button $ on the left-hand side, and I have Euro (€) and Yen on the top row for long presses on # and 3, and the pound is relegated to the right hand side for a long-press on ".
Is there any way that I can set it to replace the $ on the main screen with a £ sign, and replace the dollar on its own button on the symbol screen with a pound sign?
Am using the built-in Swype keyboard (v1.64.40.9754) on a Vodafone UK Samsung Galaxy S (Eclair 2.1 update 1, build JM4).

You may need to file a bug report or feature request on their forums: http://forum.swype.com/

Thanks for the suggestion, have done http://forum.swype.com/showthread.php?1343-Default-currency-key-doesn-t-change will keep an eye out there, assuming no one here knows how to change this behaviour?

I use Swype, but I'm from the US.  It sounds like a locale problem that the devs need to look into.

Looks like a problem with the version of Swype pre-installed by Samsung. I have logged a bug on Swype's forums here. Don't think there's anything much any of us can do now except wait for Swype to fix the bug and for Samsung to push out the updated version.
(just adding this as an answer and accepting to get this off the unanswered questions list, if anyone has a better solution please post and I'll transfer the acceptance over)

Try changing the Swype theme after you have selected your default language.

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text:
Does HTC Sync work well with Thunderbird?
As I no longer have access to Outlook, I have to look for alternatives for managing mail, agenda's and contacts.
My first guess would be Thunderbird, but I wonder how well this syncs with HTC Sync as I never had any trouble setting it up with Outlook, I would prefer that it stayed that way.
So does anyone have any experience with syncing their Android phone through Thunderbird?

Any reason you can't sync to Google and use Thunderbird as an IMAP client?

I can, but it's just that I prefer managing all these things on my desktop and Google's contact management sucks. So normally I used Outlook as an email client for all my email addresses and managing everything from one application. But I do have everything syncing with Google off course ;-)

Well, with https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/7307/ and http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/ you should be able to manage your contacts and calendar in Thunderbird and sync with Google.

I'd recommend, rather, using Thunderbird as an IMAP client with the Google Contacts and Lightning add-ons ( http://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/7307 and http://mozilla.org/projects/calendar). You should be able to manage your contacts and calendar in Thunderbird and sync with Google. So then your Thunderbird and phone will each synchronize to and from Google.


text:
Why does my wifi not automatically reconnect to prefered networks?
I've got a San Francisco handset running 2.1.
I've configured it to connect to my wifi network at home. If I go out of range, or reboot the phone, it fails to re-connect automatically and I have to manually go thru the settings, disable wireless, then enable it for it to re-attach itself to my network
Is there an easier way?

Might be related to: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/2408/how-can-i-configure-my-phone-to-automatically-connect-to-remembered-wifi-networks

Add the Power Control widget (available by default in Android 2.1+ for most phones) or a similar wi-fi toggle app to your home screen. (Long press on the home screen, Widget, Power Control.) That usually fixes it for me.


text:
Wi-fi is auto-enabling
I don't know why but the Wi-fi on my Droid (Froyo) keeps auto-enabling. I can't figure out what is causing it and want to make it stop. I only like being connected to wi-fi at times of actual use so I don't waste battery.
Anybody think of applications/settings that can be configured to auto-enable wi-fi?

I have found the culprit but I still don't know where to look to change the settings, these things get enabled when I used my desk dock.

Look for an application titled 'Power Manager', this application has controls to enable/disable: WIFI, Bluetooth, GPS based off multiple triggers. One of which being powered by A/C which was what my 'issue' was. Just had to change this so it didn't change the WiFi status.

What about rebooting your device ?
I had the same problem solved like this...
[EDIT] Do you use a widget for the wifi: it can help you to disable it?

rebooting fixes sooooo many problems.

I wish I knew how to recreate this issue rather than just a generic 'it happens sometimes', would make troubleshooting this issue a lot easier.

does rebooting fixes your problem ?

no, rebooting has not solved the issue

What do you mean by auto enabling? Does it get enabled every time you unlock your phone? Otherwise did you try changing this option: Settings->Wireless and Networks-> Wi-Fi settings (press menu key) Advanced -> Wi-Fi sleep policy
(I have Android 2.1, so your menu path may differ slightly)

Auto enable meaning that I manually disable the wi-fi and the device turns it back on without my specific direction. This wouldn't be the sleep policy as that would be what turns it off. Thanks for the suggestion.

There could be any number of apps that re-enable wifi: can you share your appbrain app-list? It would be easier for us to tell.

http://www.appbrain.com/user/cynicaljoy/apps-on-the-phone

Juice-defender, Ultimate Juice, Power Manager Full -- one of these is likely to be the culprit. I can't speak from direct experience, because I've intentionally avoided these apps, but the general sentiment is that they are a bad idea, because they lead to odd phenomena such as you are experiencing. I'm not saying that they are always a bad idea, or that they can't be used without ill-effect, but they do tend to monkey with processes that are better controlled by other means. You might want to try without them for a bit, see if it solves the issue.

I've disabled (uninstalled) those applications and will attempt to run without for a few days. Will update with results.

If you have Sprint, go to Settings → Wireless and Network/More... → Mobile Networks and uncheck the box Connections optimizer.


text:
I saw the 'z4root' application on the Droid market just now. Is it safe to use on my Samsung Galaxy S?
Anybody used the Z4ROOT program to root/unroot his device ? Can I use it on my Samsung Galaxy S phone ?
Is it a real root / unroot process ? I am a developer myself and know how much damage you can do on a computer if you have too much power and too little knowledge.
However, a true root / unroot program seems ideal. That way I can root the device if necessary (f.i. to grab a screen dump or whatever) and unroot the device immediatly afterwards (until such time I really know what I'm doing - if ever :)  ).

I've rooted my SGS with z4root and it was a very smooth process! I can highly recommend z4root!
And while you're at it, continue with installing One Click Lag Fix to make your SGS lag a lot less! I did it, and haven't looked back since. OCLF is made by the same guy who made z4root, but for some weird reason, OCLF can, by itself, only root pre-froyo phones. But that's not a big problem, you just need 2 apps instead of one :)

I used z4root on Samsung Galaxy 3, and it was quite smooth.
The easiest way to root(unroot) android.

The XDA post for z4root says that it is 100% compatible with Samsung Galaxy S and will provide a permanent root option.

V1.2.0 : Unroot support, fix for
  devices with small max file size such
  as I5700, binaries in xbin rather than
  bin

So it says it will unroot?  I have not used this method to root any phones, so I can not vouch for it.

Z4root was a very nice simple app (at least, v. 1.3.0 worked for SGS on Froyo 2.2),
but after I upgraded Samsung Galaxy S to Gingerbread (2.3.5),
this rooting method became nonfunctional.
The phone can be rooted with SuperOneClick though.


text:
Which music players support search by "Album Artist"?
All the music players I've tried have search by artist/album/genre but I really want search by "Album Artist".
Do any of the market players do this?

Music PlayerPro has that feature.

But it's a Paid app. I tried many free ones, (powerAmp, winamp, cube, double twist, mixzing...) none have that feature!
Note 1: Meridian (free) can search using composers (it calls it writers).
Note 2: There is an issue-ticket related to this open in the android issue tracker. So this may be fixed in stock players in future.

I'm not sure if this has changed in the last few years, but you can no longer browse nor search by album artist in PlayerPro.

I know this is an old thread, but GoneMad works.
PowerAmp and PlayerPro do not.

Their Google Play page says you cannot browse by album artist, but you can search by album artist. Having said that, I can't work out how to even do that!

powerAmp isn't free, I guess you should give shazam a try, it's paid but it's one of the best, it even listens to music if there is any around you and try to recognize giving you the track name, artist,.... etc, also it searches by album artist.

PowerAmp won't let you browse or search by album artist. You can browse by "Albums by Artist", but this is lists all albums, which are then further split by artists (i.e. even worse!). Also, Shazam is not a music player, but (as you say) an application to identify music through your device's microphone.

I recommend Rocket Music Player The free version's feature set is fairly comprehensive and to top that off, it respects its users by showing no advertisement.
When you install it, click the three dots icon at the bottom-right corner (or possibly bottom-left if you have a right-to-left language), and select Settings. From there, you can go to the "Tabs" menu and enable the "Album Artists" tab. You can also go to the "My Library" menu and select the conditions for album grouping (applied globally, but most notably you'll want this for the "Albums" tab). Obviously, you'll want to tick "Same album artist".


text:
Are the HTC Desire HD video issues solved yet/solvable by the end user?
I'm considering getting an Android phone, and at the moment, my choice is between the HTC Desire and the HTC Desire HD. As the price difference is minimal, the obvious choice would be the newer one, but some reviews have mentioned video issues on the device.
Since that looks like an issue that could be solved in software, and that review was written at the time of release. Are these issues still present on fully update HTC Desires, and can they be solved if they are?

I guess these issues are solved as I have never encountered such on my Desire HD.

There are solutions if you encounter problems (which I did myself).
One thing to try if you get "laggy" or "jagged" video is to disable USB debugging or uninstall the flash updates from market.
I'd imagine this issue doesn't occur on the latest batch of devices; my friend's just got the DHD and it's working fine.


text:
How can I make Google Maps cache the map for my entire city?
The Google Maps app for android caches the map tiles of areas you visit. Also, the GM Brut mod allows you to cache map tiles to the SD card. I'm on a very limited data plan, so I'd like to have my entire city cached to my phone memory/SDcard. So far, the only way I can think of is to manually scroll all over the city using different zoom levels.
My question is: is there a better way to do that? Again, I want to be able to use GM anywhere in the city without having to download the maps on-the-fly over my data plan. Is there a practical way to achieve this, so I won't have to scroll several times (once for each zoom level) over the entire city?

This won't answer your question for Google Maps, specifically, but have you tried using an offline map application such as MapDroyd?  Would that suit your needs? You download the entire map beforehand and therefore wouldn't have to use your data to view the map.

Since you asked this question, Google has added a "pre-cache map area" feature to Google Maps's experimental Labs features. You first have to go into Settings > Labs and enable "Pre-cache Map Area", then visit a place page (either by clicking on a POI or long-pressing somewhere on the map), look at the list of "More Options", and click "Pre-cache Map Area". It will cache the area within 10 miles of the point and keep it cached for 30 days. Depending on the size of your city, you might have to cache a few different points to get the coverage you want.
Here's more from the Google blog:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/download-map-area-added-to-labs-in.html

Google Maps was developed to be used when connected to the network so I don't believe there is a possibility to make it cache a complete area.
You should then take a look for an alternative mapping application that supports offline mode. For instance, the OsmAnd application might do everything you are looking for.

The recent version of Google Maps does cache tiles for your routes and places you visit. I'm still trying to get more details.

From the announcement for Google Maps 5: Since Google no longer has to download map images from its servers and vector-based maps require 100 times less data for all zoom levels, it's feasible to cache data. "Rather than having a static set of maps when installed, Maps will automatically start caching the areas you visit the most when your device is plugged in and connected to WiFi (e.g., the nightly charge)." You can't manually control caching, but it's an important first step toward an offline Google Maps.

So, there's currently no way to manually manage what local caching Google Maps does. As suggested in other answers you'll need to look for an alternate solution.

What works for me (most of the times) is to browse around the area of interest when connected to internet, allow all interesting tiles to load, and then the cache should work when you go offline (unless cleared, that is).


text:
Music Player with a smart Shuffle option
One of the feature that I love on Amaro (Linux) or Winamp (Windows) is the ability to shuffle the playlist, ie take all the songs in the playlist and shuffle them like a deck of playing cards. That way, when I play the list, the same song never repeat after the whole playlist have been played once.
In the basic music player on Android, and the few ones I've tried from the market, the behavior is the classical "Pick a random song" each time the previous one is ended, meaning sometimes the same song gets played 10 times in an hour, and others never get played.
Is there an app that provide this feature?

Since you mentioned Winamp - there is a version of Winamp for Android. Have you tried that? I am admittedly not sure of how exactly the shuffle feature works because I haven't used it yet.

It's the first thing I tried, as I was pretty confident to find this feature. But the shuffle in winamp for Android is just " play a random song each time" and not "shuffle the playlist then play it".

There's an App called "Just Playlists" that states the "none repeating shuffle" as one of its features:
http://www.androidzoom.com/android_applications/media_and_video/just-playlists_byqz.html

This is great, it's exactly the kind of feature I was looking for !

It's working great, I bought the paid version, only thing missing is a lock screen, but i'll write the developper about that

Try VLC player, It has a shuffle option that creates a shuffled list of your playlist.

try TRMP Random Music PLayer. It has a great shuffle engine !

Can you provide a link to the app's website/download?

I tried it but got severall problems with it, the main one being that it doesn't allow custom playlist. My music is split in different style, classical and rock, and sometimes I want to listen to all my rock random, or all my classical random. TRMP only allow all my music random...


text:
What type of headset will work for my Droid X?
I'm shopping around for a nice pair of earbuds for my Droid X since I lost my other ones, and I was curious if I could get ones with a microphone to use as a headset.
What do I need to look for to make sure they're compatible?  Are all the 4-pin 3.5mm stereo jacks alike?  If it's iPhone-compatible will it not be with the Droid (especially ones with remote volume buttons)?

Any 4-pin 3.5 mm stereo jack should work fine for straight sound but headsets with controls are a little more difficult.  Many are proprietary.  If it claims to be universal it may work but if it's designed for Apple or Nokia it probably wont.
Basically, on a 4-pin jack it all depends on which ring the headset maps to which control.  I couldn't find a Droid X pinout diagram but I believe Motorola uses the standard layout.  This site has a pretty comprehensive list of the different pinout mappings and a lot of them are the same but a lot are proprietary.
If in doubt, I'd look for a set advertised to work with the Droid X.

Here in India, we have Philips branded wired handsfree kits which are designed to be used with all modern phones. Certain phones require the jack to be plugged into a supplied female/male adapter which is then plugged into the 3.5mm jack of your phone.
This is the one I'm using with my Spica (the adapter also needs to be used) after the Samsung supplied ones conked out after a year of heavy duty use. ;-)
Perhaps you could find something similar...


text:
2.1 as a secure access point?
I rooted my HTC Desire 2.1 and I want to turn in into secure access point.
Is there any way I can do that?
I do want to make is secure so user has to enter password to get Internet access.

Depending on what device you're using, Android Wifi Tether might work for you. It's also in the Market, but the Google code page has the most recent versions . It supports WEP, WPA, and MAC address filtering (they refer to this as "access control"). You may need a custom kernel for it to work - this again depends on your device/ROM.
You could also try one of the several other wireless tether apps that are currently in the Market. Some are free and some are not, but you can shop around a bit.
Yet another option would be to install CyanogenMod if your device is supported, since it has the AOSP wifi tethering built in.

actually I am about to install CyanogenMod CM7 but want to do more reading about it before I preceed. Also I cannot find download link for CM7 for my Desire in http://www.cyanogenmod.com/

@Radek: CM typically refers to devices by their manufacturer's internal names ("codenames", basically). The Desire is also known as the Bravo, so you'll either want the Bravo build (if you have a GSM version) or the BravoC (if you have a CDMA version). Here is the Wiki page with the list of Desire devices to get you started, though.

great comment & great answer. Thank you. wifi tether works fine for me. The only thing is that it didn't work if encryption is on. But I can allow connections by mac so it's not a big deal.


text:
How can I force my Nexus One to upgrade to the official Gingerbread without waiting for the formal OTA update?
The OTA update for Gingerbread is being pushed out. But I'm in India and there's a good chance I'll be among the last people to get it. Is there a way to get that official update right now?

There is only one way. Keep checking xda developers forum for update.zip link. Once you get it download and update manually. This is the only way to get gingerbread update on your phone. Else it will take few weeks (as per google definition few weeks is 3+ months).

I agree, XDA will have it ASAP.

This is what I would do if syntheticbrain's suggestion doesn't work.

And here it is http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=11566707

Thanks, that was really simple! Next question is, how does one get information on when Google releases a signed OTA file for manual update? Do you need to be a registered Android developer for that?

It's generally just the good people at xda who 'release' the file for manual update. I don't think google, or device manufactures, ever really officially release them.

A comment on the checkin procedure: you need to enter *#*#2432546#*#* without pressing dial. (The numbes are equivalent to checkin, I just think this is clearer.)
More specifically, the general consensus seems to be that the phone polls for available updates periodically (to the OS and apps). This procedure forces it to poll, but if the OS update has not been made available to you it won't do anything.

If you put the code in between backticks `` Markdown won't read the asterisks as the code for Italics.

There was a suggestion on xda which said that one should put the phone on airplane mode, switch on wifi and then repeat the process. This way you have a better chance of getting the OTA coming your way. But seems that the checkin process only works if your model/ carrier is anyways scheduled for an OTA update.

You can install it manually, I followed these instructions.

Download the update and rename the file update.zip
Connect your Nexus One to your PC/Mac and copy that file to your microSD card.
Power down your Nexus One. Then press ‘power’ and hold the trackball.
1 . You’ll see a screen appear with three Android robots and you’ll see some code. Using the volume buttons, select ‘Bootloader’ and then press ‘Power’ to select.
On the next screen, select ‘Recovery’.
The Nexus One will reboot. You’ll see a triangle with and Android robot and an exclamation point.
Press the volume up button and the power button at the same time.
Using the trackball, select “Apply sdcard: update.zip”.

I then rebooted and now I have 2.3.

What's involved in manually updating my Nexus One?

Try Settings -> About phone -> System updates
If that isn't available, or doesn't work, try typing *#*#checkin#*#* into the dialer. As a disclaimer, I haven't myself tried the second method, but have read it is meant to work.

I tried this on my Nexus S and got an invalid code error - still might be valid for Nexus One though. You said you "read" about this code working. Can you site the source please? I'd like to read it also.

http://jeftek.com/622/how-to-force-checking-for-updates-on-android-devices/ It does actually mention it should be done with the stock dialer, which I hadn't noticed. Though the Nexus S is using stock, isn't it?


text:
How can I specify a default contact for merged contacts?
I have some contacts on my phone that appear in all or some of:

my phone
my google contacts
skype
facebook

Thankfully, Android allows me to link that contacts, so that I have only one entry in my phonebook with access to all the different sources.  However, the names aren't always identical.  For instance:

in some cases the name is in English, in others in Hebrew
some have the full name, others only the first name

Is there any way to select which of these is the default display name?

possible duplicate of Choose contact name manually?

Edit the contact you want to be the default.
Then press the menu button and join the additional contacts.
This will keep the display name as the original contact you were editing.

If contacts are already merged, open the contact, press menu/More button, and choose Mark as default. This will open a picklist of the linked contacts. The one you pick will set the contact's display name.

I don't see that on my phone?  Is this true for stock android or only for some variants?

Which version did you use? Tested it with Samsung stock 4.1.2. Possible it is Samsung only?

I am using stock on a Nexus.


text:
Does the operating system matter when syncing?
I'm going to buy a mobile phone with android and I have use linux as operating system on my desktop computers and laptop, as android is based on linux I could hope the compatibility with linux should be okay.
I've been distant from the mobile phone industry for some time, but I've seen that some phones use their own software, does android use an platform-dependant application to communicate with the phone?

Android doesn't natively use any software to sync or perform syncs with your computer.  It syncs with your Google Account services in the cloud.  You can sync certain things with your computer in different ways and it all depends on what and how you are trying to sync, but generally, Linux machines work just fine with Android.
If you want more detailed answers try being more specific about what you want to do (sync your contacts with Thunderbird, or sync you music...).

can you give me some examples of common tasks?.. as sync contacts from thunderbird or sync music

@Vicfred If you have a specific question, please ask it, but StackExchange isn't meant for listing off random possibilities.

@Vicfred: That is a very open ended question.  I will say that you don't ever have to sync anything to your computer.  I use my computer and Droid very frequently but I never sync them because my Droid syncs everything I need with Google and then I can assess this stuff (Docs, Calendar, Email, Contacts, Reader...) all from Google.com when I'm on my computer.


text:
How to select ALL text in web browser?
On my Nexus One's built-in browser, I am able to copy web page text to the clipboard by:

selecting Settings > More > Select
text,
then dragging my finger from top to
bottom (of the screen), seeing page
content highlighted in pink,
then the moment I release my finger,
the pink highlight goes away and is
replaced by a friendly message:
"Text copied to clipboard".

I can then paste it to a clipboard "viewer" app (which is not really a clipboard viewer but rather a clipboard "paster").
The problem is that, no matter what I do, my finger doesn't seem to pick up the entire text on that page. There is always something missing: A few characters from the page start, or from the page end.
Is there something similar to Ctrl+A on Windows?

Just curiosity -- why are you wanting to copy the whole page?  Would saving the page serve your purposes?

@Matthew How do I save a page? (I tried Settings menu but there is only a 'share' option, which exports the link to a notepad).

You need to have a link to the page.  For example, to save the page for this question, long press on the title ("How to select ALL text in web browser?", which is a link) and choose "Save link" when the menu pops up.

@Matthew Sorry but that only saves the link. I need to have a copy of the entire page, preferably text-only (no HTML), just as Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V on a Windows browser does. Is this possible?

It should save the page that the link points to, that's what it does for me at least.  So you can save any page, as long as you can find a link to the page :P.  I agree a direct solution would be better, but I don't know of one.

@Matthew OK, I tried again and it only offers to save link, but when I go ahead, there is a brief message "downloading", and it saves it! Still, I am really interested in a clipboard operation. Is this possible?

On my device running 2.2 Froyo, that method (from 2.1) was replaced by long-pressing on text to select it.  Two "handles" appear at each end of the selection, and you can drag them wherever you want (e.g. to the top and the bottom).  Maybe try that.  If it doesn't work, what Android version are you using?

I am using CyanogenMod Android version 2.2.1. The function you described doesn't work for me (I tried it on the Yahoo home page).

That doesn't work on CM or stock Froyo on my Droid.  Is that a TouchWiz thing or part of your custom ROM?

Hmm.  It might be a customization, but I'm sure I've seen posts from other people (without Samsungs) about it.  I believe similar "handle" functionality is available when typing text in Gingerbread with the stock keyboard ...


text:
Best codec to use for RockPlayer?
What is the best codec should I use in convertion a movie from huge HD/BRay for watching it on Android's RockPlayer?
Also what are the optimal properties should I specify for better performance+quality? (bits-per-second, resolution, audio quality, etc...)

"Best" is rather subjective.

You will get the best results using the built-in media player/decoder (called "system player" in RockPlayer, iirc) because it supports hardware decoding. For a list of supported containers and codecs see here: http://developer.android.com/guide/appendix/media-formats.html
I would recommend H264/AAC inside a MP4 container, like the website recommends, but with your device's native resolution (and a higher video bitrate, if necessary).
Though RockPlayer's ffmpeg decoder is able to play almost every media codec, the results will be quite poor (only software decoding).


text:
Different volume level for new email notification and new SMS notification?
I have lots of emails coming in all day. For this reason, my notification sounds level is low. But I need to be alarmed when I have a new SMS. Currently I don't always notice new SMS messages because they, too, have low volume level.
How would it be possible to have a different volume level for new email notification and new SMS notification?

One simple method would be to use a custom ringtone for SMS where the audio itself is louder.  You coould use a loud audio clip or edit one to be louder.

How would I extract existing notification sounds from Android to modify them in wave editor? I tried using USB connection to a computer but did't find Bubble, Rattlesnake etc in any of the folders.

That's probably a good candidate for a separate question.  I've never done it myself.

SMS Popup lets you set custom notification sounds, volumes, vibrates, LED flash and icon for popups, separately from the system notification settings.
Well worth installing, it's the first app I put on my phones, and  the first I recommend to others, really fixes a hole in the Android notifications.

Can't see volume adjustments in SMS Popup.

All of the more popular SMS replacement apps on Android - Handcent SMS, ChompSMS and GoSMS offer the ability to have custom ringtones. They also have customizable vibration patterns and you can also use custom notification icon colours and tones for a particular contact's SMS.
To adjust volume, however,  @Matthew's suggestion of different volume levels on ringtones is the easiest way to handle things.


text:
Change default application for handling headset controls
I have a HTC Desire HD running stock 2.2
When using the HTC supplied headphones, the play/pause/nav controls only work with Meridian. I don't remember explicitly setting it up as such, although I may have missed it. I'd like to be able to use them with BeyondPod instead, as I'm about 10x more likely to be listening to a podcast than music.
Is there a way to change the default app for these buttons?

Similar problem but with different music apps http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/5994/how-can-i-make-the-button-on-my-headphones-control-something-other-than-the-stock are there any similar options in Meridian?

So I had this page open on another tab for ages before I saw I hadn't saved the comment. Probably would've been more helpful before you found the answer yourself!

A bit more playing around led me to a (if not THE) solution.  I found an "enable headset buttons" check box in Meridian, which prompted me to dig further into BeyondPod, where a found a similar setting.
Everything works as I'd like now.
I've since gone back and checked a couple of things though, which are not quite as I expected.  I thought if you re-enabled the controls within one app, it might disable the other.  This isn't quite what happened. When I re-enabled Meridian, it responded to the controls, although BeyondPod still showed it as supposedly responding, which it didn't.  Once I'd disabled Meridian again, I had to go back into BeyondPod, disable and re-enable it's control in order to have it respond again.
My main gripe was that if I were listening a podcast, and bumped the headphone controls, the music would start playing over the top of my podcast audio.  While it may be a cute multi-tasking demo, it's not a particularly practical use of this feature, IMH(BC)O.

To clarify: You disabled Meridian from receiving headset actions, and enabled BeyondPod. And you're now using your headset to only control BeyondPod, not both Meridian and BeyondPod?

Yes, that's correct.


text:
Are there any specific advantages to using the Amazon Android App Store over the Google Android Market?
Is the new Amazon Android App Store just another marketplace or are there any specific features or benefits that the Google Android Market doesn't have?

There are a number of differences between the two marketplaces and while "Advantages" may be somewhat subjective there are a few specific features that the Amazon App Store has that the Market place does not.

Amazon claims to test each app before making them available for download to ensure that "each app works as outlined in [the] product description, does not impair the functionality of the mobile device or put customer data at risk once installed."
They offer one "paid" app for free each day.
Some apps have a "Test Drive" feature on their website that allows you to try the app in a virtualized Android interface in your browser (although I can't seen to find an app that has this feature yet ).
Amazon is employing their recommendation engine to suggest apps you may like based on your purchase history.

It should be noted that at the moment the Amazon App Store only works in the US (unless you are able to use a US Proxy in another country) and the service is blocked on AT&T devices.

Test Drive has been temporarily disabled, I believe.  Does Amazon's testing mean manual testing?  I assume Google does automatic scans now, though I'm not sure.

In their Dev FAQ that say "...As a result, we will be testing the apps you submit prior to making them available in our store to verify that each app works as outlined in your product description, does not impair the functionality of the mobile device or put customer data at risk once installed, and complies with the terms of the Distribution Agreement and our Content Guidelines."

I'm going to experiment with publishing my app on Amazon. The other thing is that they control the price. You give it a "list" price, but they could have a "sale" or give the app away for free for a day.

Another advantage: gift cards http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=amb_link_354382502_3?docId=1000619631

The pricing model is nice. You can set a list price. They will sell the app for (almost any) price. You will either get 70% of list price or 20% of sell price , whichever is higher.
So occasionally they might give it for free and that increases your sales (without losing revenue) or they might sell for a high price (which is good if people ready to pay for it).

A nice feature of the Amazon App store is that it is tied to your Amazon account, not your google account.    This means if you have two phones with different gmail accounts in the same house, you can share apps if they both log into the amazon app store with the same login.   On Android Market, I've had to buy apps twice in that case.

Angry Birds (Paid/Ad-Free), Angry Birds Seasons (Paid/Ad-free), Angry Birds Rio. That's it, if you like Angry Birds, that is. These are currently exclusive to Amazon's Appstore, for the time being. There are probably other apps that are exclusive as well, I don't have a list.
The Amazon Appstore is be taking advantage of its recommendation engine and the one-click purchasing it is known for. In that regard it is leaps and bounds better than the current Android Market/Google Checkout system, must faster, however the recommendations will only take into account apps you've purchased through Amazon's system, so it might not be super useful at first.
The main advantage of the Amazon Appstore is that you don't need Google's blessing, meaning you can install this on any device (above a certain Android OS version) that doesn't come with the official Android Market, say one of those cheap Chinese tablets. You have access to many of the same apps, so long as the developer has uploaded them to both places, without the need for Google to okay the device.
Update: If you like to play games on your phone Gameloft's commitment to use the Amazon Appstore exclusively is significant.


text:
MyTouch upgraded to Froyo now requires reboot to use USB storage again
After T-Mobile upgraded my "original MyTouch 3G" to Froyo, I have to reboot the phone to reconnect it to my computer after it's been connected once and disconnected.
I've tried using different USB ports on my computer, and everything else I can think of.  Is there a fix for this?
Thanks very much.

Are you properly dismounting the phone storage from your computer, and then having your phone mount it, before disconnecting USB?

That did it.  I was pulling the plug whenever I was ready.  If you'll put this as an answer I'll mark it as "the" answer.  Thanks a lot.  (Funny that I never had to do this routine before the upgrade.  Oh well, I'm glad to have a "fix".)

Done, glad to help.

Ensure you properly dismount the phone storage from your computer, and then have your phone mount it, before disconnecting USB.


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

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

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

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

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


text:
How to Put PDF on SD card for use by Adobe Reader
I have phone tethered to PC, and on the "G" drive I can see the phone directories and files.  Another post, said that you have to put PDF files on SD card.  How do I navigate to the SD card, is it the "DCIM" directory?  I tried putting a file there, but Adobe Reader still says "No PDF Files Available".

I gave up on Adobe PDF reader, too bad it doesn't have a simple "file open" option.
I downloaded Beamreader free version, and so far it's working.  It actually allows you to browse the directories and open files, what a concept!
I was going to buy the Speedsoftware Explorer suggested by @Matthew above, but never bought an app before, and got this issue:
buy an app - message: "none of the accounts on your phone are supported"

My Adobe Reader seems to be looking in the download folder, try putting them there.  You could also just browse to them on your phone and open them directly.  Your phone should already have a file manager to use for that, but I recommend Explorer (or Root Explorer if you have root).

I used PC to copy to download folder, and still get same message in Adobe Reader, "No PDF Files Available".  I installed a FileManager, but I don't see any correlation between the files that I see there and the "G" drive I referred to in my original post.  I am not yet very familiar with the directory structure, but ready to learn.

So for example, I do not see "downloads" in the File Manager.

Hmm.  Look at /sdcard/external_sd/ via the file manager, does that look like your G drive?  If so try using the file manager to move the PDFs to /sdcard/download/.

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


text:
Is there a music player can display the song words and scrobble to Last.fm?
Currently, my favourite music player is Winamp for my HTC Incredible S. Because it supports scrobbling with the Last.fm app and syncs with my Winamp in PC.
However, some of my mp3 files saved the song words and I can't find how to display those words (of the playing song) in Winamp. Likes the music player in iPod Touch / iPhone.
Is there a music player that supports those 2 features? Thank you.

Just from the Market description, Astro Player looks like it might.

I have tried about 15 mins. It's a powerful player. It's just what I need!
However, it does not support the lyrics and cover art in m4a files. Also, I can't find shuffle function.
But it's enough for me. Thanks! :)


text:
CM7: How to enable passwordless SSH login on same network?
I'm running CyanogenMod 7 and I'd like to enable passwordless SSH login to my main Linux computer on my network, but only when the phone is accessing the server over the same network. How/where should I put my .ssh/known_hosts file to enable this?

What app are you using for SSH, and does it even support this?

I'm using the SSH that is shipped with CyanogenMod, I wrote a script in Bash which will connect me to my server (ie ssh -p 1024 rfkrocktk@work-laptop), and I simply execute that. The SSH implementation is Dropbear client v0.52.

Try this:

Take/generate a public key of your Android device. Don't you ever hardcode your password into scripts :)
Put it into .ssh/authorized_keys on main computer
Then use "from=" mask to limit IP/hostname to your LAN, like from="192.168.1.*".

If IP range won't work, set up a fixed hostname for MAC address of your device on WLAN. Some AP firmwares, like OpenWRT, allow it.


text:
Why is it that many Android apps do not feature a true close application feature?
I was wondering why it seems many applications in the Android eco-system come without a true "close" feature?  It seems "different(to be politically correct)" to have to manage if an application is running through the OS rather than the actual application itself.

You'd probably have to ask individual developers why they did or did not. How are we supposed to know?

@Al Everett Matthew Read knew...

I think Al's point was that although Matthew was able to provide a generic answer, the only way of knowing why a given app doesn't have a close button is by asking the author. If they conform with the development guidelines then it's unneeded, and the problems people experience with apps draining battery in the background can really be attributed to poorly written applications. Then again, this is a bit of a generic question rather than "Why does  not have a close button?"

This is a policy encouraged by Google.  I can't find the exact link, but you can see related guidelines here: http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/ui_guidelines/menu_design.html
The idea is that users shouldn't have to explicitly manage their apps, they can just let the Android OS hibernate or terminate applications on an as-needed basis.  The problem, of course, is that this doesn't work perfectly.  I find it's often too aggressive with apps I want running, and not aggressive enough with services I'm not interested in.  But the goal is to minimize the time users need to spend managing application states.

Ah ok.  But this policy assumes all apps are implemented equally.  Some apps nuke battery-life even when not being "used" directly by me.  I have to get used to this coming from a blackberry world.

I agree, it's far from perfected.  One of the best advantages of rooting my phone was the ability to tweak the task killer settings.


text:
How can I can open local files in the default Android browser?
I want to open local files that are on my sdcard in the Android browser. How can I accomplish this?

This is pretty close to a duplicate...Open HTML file from SD card

Sorry my search didn't catch that one. Yeah its pretty close - although I'm asking for more than just HTML files.

I probably wouldn't vote to close this (if I had 3k), but now the other one shows up in the "Linked" area. I think I might go back and leave a comment on the other one so that searchers will get links both ways. These seem to get hits for very different search terms. Edit: Hm, the "Linked" section already links both ways, but I'll add a comment on the old one since it would be more visible...

In order to view local files on the sdcard with the default Android browser just enter file://sdcard/ and then the path to the file you want to view.  For example if you have an xml file named "person" in a folder named "xmlfiles" it would look like file://sdcard/xmlfiles/person.xml in your address bar.  You can create bookmarks for the file you are viewing but if you try to make a shortcut to that bookmark or use a bookmark widget (at least the HTC one) these will not work and may give an error "The linked program is no longer installed on your phone".  The bookmarks will work if opened from within the browser.
So far I have verified that the browswer can open/render these files: xml, html files(htm), and image files
It cannot open pdfs.
According to this comment it works for Android 2.1 and above

This doesn't work for me with directories (so I can browse the file system rather than typing a lot): "The web page at file://sdcard/download could not be loaded as: Is a directory".  Can that also be made to work somehow?

what path must one use for internal storage??

Found a solution for the local file browser problem on my Xoom tablet
I tried opening a local file with Opera by typing file:///mnt/sdcard/Documents/blabla.html. Opera changed the adress in file://localhost/mnt/Documents... Using the localhost syntax on the android browser opened the local file.

The answer is here already, but I am adding my 2 cents worth.  I am using the Galaxy Tab S 10.5 and for me "file://localhost/sdcard" works in the Chrome browser on Android that comes with this device.  I thought that sdcard would refer to an external media device that you can plug in, but it turns out that the sdcard in this URI refers to the built-in memory of the device.  I wanted to test some DIY wireframes (with JavaScript, XHTML and CSS) and they work once I enabled JavaScript for Chrome.

You can browse the file system with Firefox for Android

In case anyone wants to try this, it's not obvious how to do it as there doesn't seem to be any option or button that lets you do it. If you select the address box at the top of the windows and type in file:// and then press enter you should see a file listing that lets you browse into directories and click on the files to view them.

@GAThrawn "ERR_ACCESS_DENIED"

@Spook I thought that it was possible that things had changed in the 3 years since I wrote that comment, but no. I just tried it on my Nexus 5 (Android 4.4.4) and my Xoom (4.1.2), both running Firefox 31, and it works in both. Firefox does change ‘file://’ to ‘file:///’ but that's the only difference from my comment above.

@GAThrawn Then it seems to be a problem with Samsung Galaxy devices. Tried on S4 and 10.1 2014 and got the same results :(

@GAThrawn on an Galaxy S5, Android 6.x, Chrome - file://localhost/storage/emulated/0/Download give a directory listing (and sub folders) but I could not find another folder that is viewable outside of that base folder. Galaxy S4 + Android 5.x + Chrome was like that too.


text:
Does google voice require a data plan to place calls?
I own a Nexus S and will be travelling to US on a business trip. I will have a T-Mobile prepaid connection and intend to use Google Voice to make and receive calls.
Since I am currently outside the US, I cannot determine whether GV android app requires a cellular data plan to make calls.

You can call your Google Voice number from one of your forwarding phones and then enter the phone # you want to call, if you want to avoid data use entirely.

A little bit yes. (See comments below) The app will make this seamless but should still use a bit of data.
Edit: After checking Google Help I found this:

By calling your own Google number
When you call your own Google number
  and sign into the Google voicemail
  system, you’ll have the option to
  place a call. Just press 2 and enter
  the number.
For calls within the U.S, enter area
  code and number. For example:
  212-555-2222. For international calls,
  enter 011, the country code, and the
  number (or "1 and the country code,"
  depending on where you're calling).
  For example: 011442012345612345 or
  12464260200

Neat, I was wondering about this myself. I figured (wrongly) that the app dialed Google for you first.

Is it possible to have GV dial google and then place the call? This way I would only need an unlimited voice plan without data.

See edit, best way to see if I was a bit wrong with the Android app is, on your smart phone (2.2 or higher) turn off data packets and wifi. If you can still make a call with your Google voice number. The android app makes the calling using what is in my edit above

Correction: The GV app doesn't have Google call your phone. It actually calls a special number that gets hooked up to your destination number automatically. It then messes with the call logs to make it show the destination number instead of the middleman. It requires a data plan to get this special middleman number to call, but it caches it afterwards.


text:
Automatically load a text file a few minutes after the alarm goes off - is there an app for that?
Is there a way (presumably via a 3rd party app) that I can set a particular text file to open at a set time, i.e. something I need to read on a daily basis can be set to load at 6.03 after the alarm has finished going off?

You should be able to do this through an app called Tasker.  Check out Useful or cool Tasker recipes, you may be able to modify one of those scripts to do what you want.

You could also use alarm clock plus, it allows you to set an app to launch when the alarm goes off. http://www.appbrain.com/app/alarm-clock-plusv2%E2%98%85/com.vp.alarmClockPlusDock

as @MatthewRead said, it is possible using 'Tasker' and 'AutoAlarm'. Need some customised scripts/Tasks need to be set!

authors: جمال جابر حنفى


text:
Best way to read programming/technical/math PDFs on Android device
I have a ton of programming/technical/math PDFs that I would like to read on my Samsung Epic 4G. I have tried Adobe's PDF reader and ThinkFree office and the reading views destroy the code snippets and images. Zooming in and out is difficult and cumbersome. I have tried converting to ePub and reading using Aldiko but I have the same problem. (Aldiko being the best application I have found for reading on Android).
What solution would you suggest for reading these books on my phone?
I have no problem with converting or buying an application.

There's also Documents to Go which is a suite - allows for viewing / editing of MS Office docs. PDF support as well. No conversion needed.
An additional plus point is that the paid version integrates with Google Docs online allowing a user to view and edit your files from your Google Docs account directly in Docs To Go. Any changes you make can be saved and synchronized back to Google Docs so that you'll always have the most up-to-date version. You can even create new files in Docs To Go and upload them immediately to your account.

You could try Picsel Smart Office. It handles PDFs natively, and zooming is quite easy.
Disclosure: I work for Picsel.

I will certainly give this a try.

Is Smart Office available on the Amazon Appstore for the Kindle Fire?


text:
Alias place names for use in Voice Actions?
Is it possible to create an alias for a place so that I can use the alias in voice actions? Examples of the type of thing that I'd like to be able to say:

Directions to Home
Navigate to Jim's House

Currently this functionality doesn't seem to be possible using Voice Search.
There is a free app in the market called NavigationPro which is a little funky to figure out at first.
It allows you to save locations and name them in the app.  You can then enable the feature in the preferences for the app so that whenever you run the app it automatically prompts you for a name you can speak.  Once it recognizes the name it automatically goes to Google Maps and starts navigation for the address.

Try starring a place in Google Maps. Sometimes when you say the name of a starred place it will work. However, it can be a bit patchy at times.

I have for example starred my home, but I can't see how I name this location as "Home". Can I enter a name for a starred location? How do I do that?


text:
Destination host unreachable while using WiFi on 2.2
I upgraded my HTC EVO to 2.2 using a ROM I found online. (Sprint's OTA update wouldn't work)  All has been well, but I have been having troubles with my WiFi. I can connect to any AP, security or not, and I get an IP from DHCP no problem. However, I can't get online.  Using a ping tool to try to ping things on my LAN returns destination host unreachable.
The IP settings are correct. Seems my EVO's routing table is messed up. Thought's on how to narrow down the problem and/or fix it?

I figured out that if I disable 802.11n mode and just leave b/g enabled, then my phone works on WiFi just fine.  It seems that there was an issue using 802.11n on my phone.
I don't yet know if the issue was my AP or my phone, but I guess I will need to find a way to disable 802.11n on Froyo.


text:
Android Browser that Saves and Fills Passwords
Is there a browser I can install that stores passwords just like regular desktop    browsers?
I'd only use it for unimportant passwords, so I'm really not worried about security. Anything that saves and auto fills my passwords is fine.
Running a motorola-milestone.

The standard Android browser does this for me on most (non-banking type) websites. When I start typing my username into the login box it shows a drop down of names used in that login box before. Selecting one of those fills the password box in too.
If you go into the browser and press Menu -> More -> Settings and then scroll down the settings window to the Privacy Settings section, there's a tick-box there for Remember Form Data, then if you scroll down a bit further to Security Settings, there's a tickbox for Remember Passwords. make sure that both of those are ticked and you should be ok.
I'm on a Galaxy S running the official Samsung Froyo 2.2 release, and I'm sure my old HTC Magic running stock Android Donut 1.6 did this too.

Now that you mentioned, I tried a couple other sites and it worked. Looks like it's this specific one I'm having trouble with. That is weird, it's a standard login and it works fine on desktop browsers.

@Bruce could be the name of those fields?  Browsers typicall look for username/password ids on the text box fields

Could be, the ids are not in English so it might not be recognizing them. Still strange though, cause I'm using the Portuguese version of the OS (browser included).

Opera Mini 5 also includes the ability to save / remember a user's login credentials.
LastPass and KeePass also have Android editions that remember your logins / passwords, although they aren't browsers.

Paid version of LastPass includes an Android browser

There's a LastPass plugin for Dolphin browser that's great.  It will remember all of your passwords and sync with the desktop if you use LastPass there as well.  Personally I also prefer the look and performance of the Dolphin browser to the stock Android one.


text:
Listening to NBA.com audio on HTC Evo
I have a stock evo with froyo.  I'd like to listen to the audio streams from nba.com.  Even using wifi, the stream is slowed down and unintelligible when using the default browser.  I can listen to the same stream, same network, on an ancient Pentium 2 with better quality, so I don't believe it's a hardware problem.
I'm really not sure where to start investigating - would Dolphin handle this better?  Is there an app I can use to buffer the stream?  Is the site detecting the android browser and degrading the stream? (I changed the user agent string - no effect)
I'm aware there are NBA apps on Android Market but they are getting slammed on the reviews.  I bought the GameTime app last year on my Blackberry Curve and was fine with it, but I don't want to pay and find out it doesn't work.

Without further investigation I can't help you much right now but just on your comment "I don't want to pay and find out it doesn't work" the good thing about Android is you have 24 hours to refund the app if you're not happy with it. Give it a go... try as many as you can until you find one that works for you.

Just wanted to update this in case anyone else cares.
This and many other streaming audio issues seem fixed in the latest OTA:  3.70.651.1


text:
Load images only on wi-fi?
Can I somehow tell my phone to load images in (for example) browsers, gmail, twitter, etc. only when connected through a wi-fi connection? Mobile internet is pretty expensive in my country so I don't want images to spend more bandwidth than needed.. Or do I have to manualy turn it off for each app I'm using at the moment?
if it means anything, I'm using android2.2
thanks

There's currently no way to set a system-wide policy for this.  Some apps do support doing things on WiFi only, however.  Here's some info on the apps you mentioned:

You can go into the browser settings and uncheck Load Images.
GMail does not load images unless you view a message and click a button to display them.
I believe the Touiteur Twitter client allows you to disable images.

I believe this could be done with Tasker but it would be a very long and complex setup (actually several) and you'd need to know the specific intents that turn the images off in each application.

Tasker are one thing, but unless the app developer has gone through the trouble of writing all the code to disable images but are too lazy to code the setting page themselves, it is not useful in this case.

True, but considering that he was looking for a solution as an alternative to doing in manually in each app (as he said..."Or do I have to manualy turn it off for each app I'm using at the moment?"), I think that's implied.  As far as I know, Tasker is the only alternative to doing it manually so I'm not sure why my answer deserves a downvote.


text:
Do bright wallpapers spend more battery than dark ones?
I started wondering about this when I realized most websites I visit have white backgrounds, and I know that the screen is usually responsible for most of the battery usage. Since I can't change the background in those sites, I might at least switch my wallpaper to a black one.
Most (all?) phones need back-lighting to brighten the screen when needed. Since that back-lighting consumes battery, is it correct to state that a white screen consumes energy at a faster rate than a black one? (assuming the same brightness level in the settings)
I'm assuming that a white screen needs stronger back-lighting, but I don't know if it's the case.

Good question. I'd hope that my OLED screen uses less power with a dark image than a backlit screen.. but would love to see some figures.

Wow, I chuckled when I first read this, but this has turned into a pretty interesting question.

Some devices (like the Galaxy S) have an option under Display settings labelled: "Power Saving Mode: Save power by analyzing image and adjusting LCD brightness". This seems to suggest that the sAMOLED screen is adjusting it's brightness depending on the image brightness, and getting a noticeable enough benefit on dark images to make this worth being a standard option.

There's an app called screen filter which keeps the brightness down for the purpose of saving battery life on LED based displays.

On OLED, AMOLED and Super AMOLED screens: Yes
LCD screens: No

From what I can see in your seconds link, dark backgrounds do actually reduce power consumption of LCD screens if they use IPS technology. Like the one in HTC One X, I believe.

@Pius The reduction listed in that table (~4%) is negligable compared to the the 100% drop between white and black on AMOLED screens.  It is interesting though.  This article suggests that IPS LCD use less energy than AMOLED screens on screens that display approx 33% white or more.

VERY interesting article. Thank you for sharing.

For OLED, AMOLED and Super AMOLED, is it just complete black pixels that consumes battery much less because light is turned off? Or is it also dark grey pixels too that consumes considerably less energy than white pixels?

This depends on the screen technology.
For instance, (it was said that) Android 2.3 Gingerbread has dark theme since Google's latest flagship device Nexus S uses (Super) AMOLED display which consumes less energy when displaying dark color since AMOLED produces its own light and darker color emits less photons. Contrasts with LCD display which uses a backlight (a fixed number of photons) and the LCD crystals filters those colors it needs. The crystals on an LCD displays though, actually consume slightly less power when displaying white since it takes more power to strain the crystal to block more light.
Screen color does not affect the backlighting. There are certain display technologies in TVs that tries to give dynamic backlighting by dimming the screen when displaying darker image. I'm not aware of any device that actually ships with that type of screen though.

Android 2.3 uses AMOLED? Isn't AMOLED a property of the phone?

@Bruce: whoops, I meant to say Nexus S, sorry about that. Fixed.

Hey, I just ran a load of test to figure this out. They are vaguely scientific tests! I figured out that I was saving 20% battery by switching to dark wallpaper and dark themed apps. Have a look through my write up, you should be able to work out the saving on your phone:
http://blog.stevemould.com/phone-battery-save-black-wallpaper/

Your "report" provides more detail information on this question than any of the other answers with higher votes. It's a shame that some people just upvote the answer at the top. Nice research - thanks for your time doing that and writing it up.

Thanks for the tip... Current Battery usage is criminal and had been searching for an answer on the net to extend the battery life of my S..

Page is blank for me today, work for anyone else?


text:
What is the Practical difference between the Home screen and the Launcher screen?
It seems that on my Nexus One, the home screen and launcher screen essentially serve the same purpose: Host application icons, allowing you to launch them.
Are there any other differences, other than the names and the way to reach these screens?
For example, can the launcher screen include widgets?

I'm not sure what you mean by launcher?

By "Launcher" do you mean the app drawer?

@Bryan @Al I am using the terminology in nexusone-userguide.pdf. I myself am relatively new to Android and so I don't even know what an "app drawer" is. I am in the process of reading the user's manual and I need to understand this issue.

the "app drawer" is the typically the on screen button at the bottom of your home screen.  It pulls up a list of all of your applications installed on your phone

The main difference is that the launcher screen contains all installed apps on your system. You cannot order it nor do anything but using the icons to access any application.
In the main screen you can:

Add shortcuts to applications (icons
like the ones in the launcher
screen), you can place each icon in
the place you want.
Add widgets that provide rich
functionalities like clocks,
calendars or weather access.

If you want to compare your phone with a computer, launcher screen is the equivalent of “start menu” in windows, while the main screen(s) are the equivalent to the desktop.

Hmm, the app list in the TouchWiz UI can be customized, I didn't realize it couldn't be in the AOSP UI.


text:
How to show own photo in SMS conversation?
How can I show my own photo profile icon in SMS conversations? I cannot find where to set it.

It depends on your device and what app you are using. On my Droid 1 running Froyo if I add my own cell # to my contacts the default messaging app uses the avatar that is set with that contact entry.  if you add this it may take a little while for everything to sync up and for the pic to begin to display. In Handcent SMS you can set custom contact specific avatars.

Your tip worked perfectly.

In my case Matt's solution didn't work, so I found this solution on http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/android/thread?tid=3a41f790937732e1&hl=en

This is caused by a few different problems.

If you go into Settings -> About phone -> Status and the My Phone Number section is Unknown or not your number, then your problem is that the phone doesn't know which contact to use for you.

If your number is in there and correct then it may not know which contact to use, if you have multiple contacts with the same number.

Unknown Number
In the first case (unknown number) you will need to use another handset to change the number. Find someone (possibly on the same network as you) with an iPhone and get them to let you put your SIM card in it, on the iPhone go into Settings -> Phone -> My Number and then enter your phone number, hit Okay and then eject the SIM. Put it back in your phone and it should just work, if not follow onto the next procedure.
Multiple Matching Contacts
This is easier from gmail, find all the contacts you have with the same number as your phone (with and without country codes) and delete/merge them, if you deleted them create a new contact with your details and avatar in it and save.
After syncing with the mobile your Messaging app should show the correct avatar.

I have a Huawei Ascend g300
Click on your 'Messaging' icon to get a list of your conversations.
Then click on the menu button below your screen, click Settings. You will see a title 'Common Settings' look below Common Settings and there is 'My Picture'. Click 'My Picture' to choose a profile photo from your Gallery or take a photo with your camera. Easy
I found it by accident as I was searching how to add a picture of me. Not having a Profile Picture was driving me insane!!!! lol

I have a droid bionic and I went into my contacts and at the top it says your profile and I filled it out and put my picture in there and it worked perfect.

In Handcent, I just found out by exploring, there is a file called "hc_account_picture.png" which gives the picture to the "Me" Contact internally.
/data/data/com.handcent.nextsms/files/hc_account_picture.png
is the full path. just copy the new graphic file here and then restart the phone!!!


text:
Scrolling behaviour for apps (in general)
I have a HTC Desire and I've realised there appears to be, for most apps (in general) 3 types of scrolling.

Drag/pull with finger and the contents scrolls (slowly) depending on how much you've moved your finger
'Flick' your finger across the screen and the content scrolls (relatively fast) and slows down towards the end
"Do something" and the contents scrolls insanely fast - usually goes to the end of the content...

My question is what is what do I do to 'activate' #3?
Reason is, every now and then I somehow activate #3 (often when I don't want it) which makes it very annoying. But sometimes I do want to scroll insanely fast right to the bottom/top of the list/page but end up just flicking multiple times (very annoying again). Would be nice to be able to control/choose which scroll type I need.

I've only seen number 3 in one app: Tweetdeck. Pressing the button with the date/time on at the top of the list scrolls really fast to the top. It took me a while to discover this.

I have also seen the 3 scrolling types you mention below, but it always seemed to me that the 3rd one was more a bug than a feature.
The HTC Desire (which I have too) is not known to have a great digitizer, the part of the screen that handles the finger positions and movements. Furthermore, it's not "multitouch", meaning it cannot handle properly more than 1 finger on the screen, although there are tries to support it but I've never seen it work constantly good. See this page for more proof.
It's true that it would be a nice feature, maybe on other phones with a better touchscreen and a further version of Android with more gestures supported. Why not for example scrolling down with 2 fingers would trigger a super-fast scroll or a "go to bottom" action?

Thanks for the link - it did occur to me that it might be a bug, but was secretly hoping it was a feature. Guess I'll have to try and find a way to reliably reproduce this 'buggy feature' :)


text:
Force Media Update?
Sometimes I download songs from various sources, and they aren't put in the requisite media folder on external storage. The media scanner can still find them, but the only way I have found to do this is by moving the file around with a file manager, or mounting and unmounting as USB storage. This forces the phone to rescan for media files.
Does anyone know of a way to give Android a hint that it needs to rescan for media from within Android itself?

Most custom ROMs include this functionality as part of the Power Widget.  For stock firmware you have to resort to 3rd-party apps such as ScanMedia or SDRescan, for example.

Another app I used to solve the same problem: MediaScanner.

Meridian Media Player has an option to rescan media in its toolkit section.

I wish there was a native way to do this, but thanks for the info everyone!

Both of these apps crash when I try to run them.   java.lang.SecurityException ... not allowed to send broadcast ... MEDIA_MOUNTED

This is a very good question and I see it is already answered. I wrote a small application to solve this problem specifically for Kit Kit(Android 4.4+). My application works on all phones.
Here:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=burrows.apps.sdcard
This works on the Nexus 5!
Please let me know if this helps you!
Regards,