text:
Contacts and calendar no longer syncing between google and phone
I have a Samsung Galaxy S2 that has suddenly stopped being able to sync my calendars and contacts with GMail. Every time I try, I get the message sync is currently experiencing problems. It will be back shortly.
The only thing I've tried to do is to remove and then re-instate my account, but still no joy. Has anyone had this problem before? What have I done or am I doing wrong?
I don't think it's anything new that I've installed because it was syncing fine up till about a month ago, and that's long after I installed non-native apps such as Go contacts.

Just experienced the same on SGS2 running JB. Calendar hadn't sync'ed in 5 days, contacts hadn't in more than a week. Found out because I was looking for events I knew I had added - no warnings or anything :-(

Try these things:

Go to the tablet's System Settings/Account (Google), tap your account name, make sure Calendar is checked for sync.
Go to the Calendar app's Settings, tap your account name, and make sure the calendars that you want synced are checked.

OR
Settings-->Apps--> click on the ALL tab-->Calendar.
Then Clear Data.
Then go back to Settings-->Accounts-->Google--> Tap on Calender for sync.
Short cut name will change according to which android version you are using.

On my SGS2 running JB, I solved it by clearing "Calendar Storage" and "Contacts Storage". Thanks for the hint.

Go to the tablet's System Settings/Account.
Set automatic sync.
Go to Google account.
Check sync people details.
Check sync app details.
Check sync calendar.


text:
Is it possible to turn of the GSM radio and still use data connection?
I recently starting using a Samsung Galaxy S4. I need to use a special phone at my work. For that purpose I have a duo card where I turn off one phone to use the other.
The problem is that I can only turn off all connections on the Samsung (Airplane Mode), including the mobile internet connection.
My question is: can I turn off the phone capabality (GSM?) on the Samsung while maintaining my mobile network on the Samsung?

If you have Wi-Fi available you can activate Airplane Mode and then re-activate Wi-Fi.

Simply impossible. Mobile Network IS GSM. GPRS, EDGE, UMTS or LTE, which are different standards for providing packet-based Internet connections, are all expansion of the GSM standard and, as such, require a GSM signal.

I think that sums it up. Thanks for your quick response, Shywim.

That depends. If you are allowed to divert incoming calls and messages to another number, you can divert them to a number that is disconnected and you will still have the data connection on your phone.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
How to Remote Control Google Doc Presentation?
I want to remote control Google Doc Presentations. Is there an app for this?
Bonus point if it can connect via Bluetooth to my Linux-based PC.

For those who came to this post as they knew support was built-in a long time ago, allowing for controlling using a mobile browser, that's no longer true: What happened to the "View Together" option?. Sad.

You could simply use a bluetooth/wifi mouse app like PRemoteDroid. There are a bunch of others, and generally speaking they just allow your device to be used as a mouse/keyboard input. If you can pair with your PC it should work, although I've never tried it myself (I do use PRemoteDroid to pair with and remotely control my Xoom, though; works great).
Another option would be some kind of VNC or remote desktop client, but that's not as lightweight and some of them don't support Linux (Splashtop, for example, doesn't have a Linux server, IIRC).

Google Presentation Remote is great and really easy to use on your Android phone. It is dependent on the Chrome Extension "Google Presentation Remote".

Link doesn't work

I'm the developer of an app called WatchPresenter, which lets you control Google Slides from your phone. It doesn't require phone and computer to be on the same network (as long as both have Internet it will work).
You control the slides by using the volume buttons, so you can switch the phone's screen off (easier to handle without hving to look at the phone, and less risk of unintentional clicks).
Additionally, if you have a Android Wear device, it lets you control the presentation with wrist gestures.

I wouldn't go so far to mark it spam – if you include a full disclosure with your post. References: How do I mention my own products in answers? / What is the correct way to add your own product to an answer? / Limits for self-promotion in answers

It works thx! But fix bug with multiple clicks per second :)

@DawidDrozd can you give me more details about the bug so that I can fix it?

I did end up using the paid app Presenter. I liked the interface and the way it dominantly shows the presentation time.

authors: อมรรัตน์ คําภูแสน

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


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

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

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


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Is Adobe Flash available for ARMv6 devices?
Is it possible to have flash working or ARMv6 devices?

You have Flash Player which is pre installed on your device. You can have (some) luck with running .swf files. I tried running it in the browser and it was a bit glitchy.

How do you know what model his phone is? I've a Legend which is ARMv6 and has Flash Player. Flash Player is for those devices that can't run Flash.


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Can I transfer my phone contacts to my Gmail address book for use on my PC?
I spent a lot of time organizing my contacts on my Galaxy S (Android 2.2) and want to know if I can transfer them to my Gmail address book on my PC. My PC OS is Ubuntu 12.04 and my Gmail desktop client is Thunderbird.

Absolutely. If you've synced your Android device with your Google account, your contacts would automatically show up on Google / Gmail Contacts.
If all your contacts are saved as "Phone Contacts" and not "Google Contacts", however, they will not be synced. You need to export the Phone Contacts and then import them into Google Contacts. It might be helpful if you adjusted your settings from within the contacts app to automatically save new contacts as Google contacts instead of Phone Contacts.

The only export option I have are to export to SD card or Sim card?  How do you export to Google Contacts?  Will I ask a new question here?

you export to the sdcard, then re-import them as google contacts.

If you use Google+, be sure to back up your current Google Contacts from the web before syncing. Contact syncs from new devices can sometimes delete all of your Circles.


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Are contacts from the Google account also stored on the phone?
Are contacts stored in Google Contacts also stored on the phone or are they only accessible if the phone has a data connection?

Why don't you try putting the phone into Airplane mode and seeing if the contacts are still there?

A copy is locally stored, so these contacts are also available when there is no current data connection.


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What does "avoided poor Internet connection" mean?
The connection to my work wifi just failed and below the network my phone is saying "Avoided poor Internet connection". What does this mean exactly? Has the phone detected that it can't get out to the wider Internet or did the network fail to allocate an IP address or something else?
Not sure if it matters but this is on a Galaxy Nexus.

@richardborcsik No I'm not using ICS, its just the phone connecting over wifi on its own.

@LukeQuinane ICS means Ice Cream Sandwich, which in turn means Android 4.0 or greater. Since your device is a Galaxy Nexus, you in fact are using ICS :)

@RichardBorcsik Yeah, I got that, thought that I'd clarify what was meant by ICS in this context.

Poor connection may mean that:

there is either a weak signal from your wifi partner device.
there is much noise from other systems using the same frequency.

Both mean that many data-packets are lost and have to be retransmitted so your overall throughput goes down.
You can compare this with:

somebody is speaking not loud enough
many people are speaking at the same time and it is difficult to understand one person in that noise

If you have interference problems it might help to
change the wifi channel/frequency

Or your device couldn't get a valid IP address and had to fall back to a link-local address, or the connection from the access point to the internet has a high jitter and/or packet loss percentage

TO confirm @onik's comment, I've been seeing "Avoided poor Internet connection" quite a lot in the last week on hotel wifi, before that message appears, if I open the Wifi section of Settings I can see the connection cycle through "Connecting" and "Obtaining IP Address" for a few minutes before the system gives up and says that it has avoided the poor connection. In this case most likely either an over-loaded wifi AP or DHCP server that has run out of addresses, or a flaky connection that keeps dropping while the phone is connecting to the AP.

I'm seeing the same device behavior as GAThrawn, but I also have access to packet traces run against the DHCP server that clearly show that (a) the DHCP server is doing exactly the right thing in response to requests from the Android device and (b) after the DHCP server sends its DHCP ACK, the Android device and the local gateway successfully exchange ARP packets. The wifi connection is quite solid, and there are only two other devices on the network.

This problem has been plaguing me ever since I upgraded my Sony Ericcson Experia Pro ("iyokan") from Cyanogenmod 7.2 (Android 2.3.7) to 9.0 (Android 4.0.3) -- until today when I did some more detailed investigation.
It's pretty clearly a defect related to the DHCP client.  When it manifests, the device fails to obtain an IP address from any access point, even those with which it had previously had no trouble.  Switching to a static IP address works around the problem.
a few minutes ago, I found that deleting the contents of /data/misc/dhcp and then resetting the device cleared the problem.  I'm sure it will happen again, but when it does, I'll know what to do about it.
I hope this information helps someone and perhaps leads to a fix.  I can't report it is an official bug because I'm using a nightly build (cm-9-20120819-NIGHTLY-iyokan)

I too had this problem on CM9. And the problem was so bad that I could barely connect to my WiFi. So I decided to fix it myself. I wrote an App which now easily solves this problem. You can get it from Google Play.
Now a bit of explanation:
The problem:
As you might know, when your device says "Poor connection" the connection is not really poor, it's all about Android messing it up. This can be solved by clearing the contents where Android stores DHCP information, for some reason that data is causing the problem.
This information is nothing but lease and pid stuff. As the lease is not human-readable (at lease I don't get it!) I can't tell what exactly wrong that's going on there. But clearing that helps.
The solution:
The solution that I built simply automates turning WiFi Off, clearing DCHP information, and then turning WiFi back On. Simple yet perfect solution! :)

Can you give us some idea of what your app does to fix this please. I'm just curious if there's some way a non-root user could do this through reconnecting/disconnecting etc even if its more painful?

@GAThrawn: Yes, the app clears the contents where Android stores it's DHCP information. For some reason that data is causing all of the problem. As you might know, when it says "Poor connection" the connection is not really poor, it's all about Android messing it up.
Now about non-root devices, I fear this solution won't work as to access that DHCP data you need super user permissions. (And that's why the app needs root access.)

Interesting. What kind of DHCP information are we talking about here? Leases? Or the configuration? How did you know how to fix it? Where can I find additional information? Is you app open source? If so, where can I review the source?

Too many questions.. Haha! Yes, it's lease and pid. As the lease is not human-readable (at lease I don't get it!) I can't tell what exactly wrong that's going on there. But clearing that helps. :) I was Googling around for fixing this problem, somewhere (unfortunately, I don't remember where) I read that it's the problem with DHCP info. So gave try to clearing it manually, and it worked! My app only automates turning WiFi Off, clearing DCHP lease and pid, and then turning WiFi back On. Simple yet perfect solution! ;)

This also occurs if the device is unable to contact the DHCP server.

When I had this issue, I edited the gateway of the WiFi network in advanced WiFi settings to be the same as the proxy address. This solved the issue for me.

Could you please explain How to do this? The question does not say anything about a proxy being used. What settings should that be, and where to find them?


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Shortcut to particular document in Google Docs app?
Is there a way to make a shortcut to one particular document? I frequently need one particular document from a secondary account, so it's always a pain to come out of current document, change accounts and load the required document. Any ideas?

Have you considered sharing the document with the other account?

Workaround - use Google Docs via a browser, and bookmark that page.

It's easy to add bookmarks to the home screen, too.

These days you can add a widget that directly links to a Google Doc. It seems like it doesn't work on all devices (or perhaps all home screens?) though, as on my girlfriend's phone the widget doesn't appear even though Google Drive (the app that allegedly provides the widget) is installed.


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How to upgrade Galaxy Nexus from 4.0.1 to 4.0.4
I would like to know how to manually upgrade my Samsung Galaxy Nexus from Android version 4.0.1 to the latest 4.0.4.
I got this phone in Australia and it is currently running the "yakjudv" build rather than the standard "yakju" build. My understanding it that the "yakju" build is the standard one produced by Google and that the "yakjudv" build is one produced by my carrier and hence why I am not getting the standard Google updates.
I am prepared to move to the standard Google build if it is easier.

If you use CyanogenMod, you can see this tutorial.
Hope it can help you. http://thesuperusersguide.weebly.com/how-to-flash-a-rom.html

I think to move to the standard Google build, you have to root your Nexus to bypass the signature verification. Otherwise you can't go to the Google build.
I have a Nexus One and it's the same thing. Before, i can get the Google OTA, i had to root my phone.


text:
How to remove pre-installed apps like Peep and Friend Stream from my HTC phone?

Possible Duplicate:
How can I uninstall applications that are locked by phone vendor?

Is there an easy way to remove pre-installed apps on my HTC Droid Incredible?

Amazon MP3
Car Panel
City ID
Footprints
Friend Stream
Skype mobile
Stocks
Teeter
VZ Navigator

Are there risks involved in removing them, such as a voided warranty?
Thanks.

I wonder if there's anything handset-specific about this question? I have the same question about a Droid X and it looks like the answers are equally applicable.

Unless you use a non HTC based ROM, I wouldn't recommend removing Peep and FriendStream. Devs that have always end up putting them back in because of the issues it causes removing them. If you are going to use a CM based ROM you should be fine for sure.

@Webs - Why? HTC Sense does not require those apps. I've removed them before.

I'm not really sure, but any ROM developer for the HTC Evo that has removed them from an HTC Sense based ROM has ended up putting them both back. For some reason they seem to be threaded in HTC Sense. Fresh, Damageless, and Virus have ended up putting them back in their ROMs and one of them stated on their XDA thread they put it back due to issues and FCs.

You can only fully uninstall pre-installed applications by using ADB. You need to find out what the package name is for the specific app, and enter this in the ADB prompt:
adb uninstall <package.name>

For example, to remove the Maps application:
adb uninstall com.google.android.apps.maps

So far I haven't found an easy way to figure out the package name for an app though.

Do this require a rooted phone?

@Chris - As @Bryan said above, yes, it does.

This isn't 100% true Arda. Many devs now have flashable zips you can run in recovery that will remove apps for you. In fact there is a whole thread for the Evo where someone wrote a script that allows you to create your own flashable zip and choose what apps it will remove.

@Webs - Guess what rooting is? Flashing a zip like that is basically running software as root.

My comment was directed toward your Answer, not comment, which states that "You can only fully uninstall pre-installed applications by using ADB." I was attempting to state that such a statement is not 100% true.

@Webs - Oh right. ADB is a lot less involved though.

Agreed, ADB is less involved for experienced users like us, but for people that know nothing about ADB, but have a rooted phone, flashing a zip in recovery might be easier.

@Webs - Less involved than flashing a recovery image, booting it and flashing a zip? It probably changed for some ROMs (what with ROM Manager and all) but most users who got their phones rooted some time ago will already have installed that rec-image using ADB.

True for older users yes. But most root methods that have come out in the last 4 months don't require ADB, but it does vary from phone to phone.

@Webs - It's pretty dangerous to let someone root their phone without having access to ADB though, especially if their rec-image's nindroid breaks for some reason and you need to do it manually.

I'm not sure one method is necessarily more dangerous than another, just depends on the exploit the root method is attempting to take advantage of. I personally like using ADB because I know exactly what is happening to my phone, versus Revoked, which does things in the background.

@Webs - Not being able to use ADB when rooting can result in not being able to recover when things go south.

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


text:
How can you uninstall an app that you didn't install on your Droid?

Possible Duplicate:
How can I uninstall applications that are locked by phone vendor?

I want to uninstall the facebook app, as I don't use facebook. The phone won't let me uninstall that app.
I have a Droid Eris and a Motorola Droid. I want to get rid of it from both these phones.

unfortunately you need root permission to uninstall system apps.  If you are rooted you can use ADB and type
adb uinstall <package name>

Since I am not rooted, I guess I have no choice.

@adbhi - That's how carriers work. "Android is as open as the clenched fist I'd like to hit carriers with." as quoted on a tech blog. Carriers make a lot of money by keeping that kind of apps on their devices.

@Arda Xi: The guy who wrote that article didn't really understand what "open" means.  But, yeah, this is a valid gripe with the cell carriers; It's basically permanent advertising on your device, and it's annoying as hell.

Guys, think Free as in Free Speech, not Free as in Free Beer. You can do what you want with the SOURCE CODE for android. And are entitled to it. However that says nothing about what rights you have as a user to your own device. According to the carriers, you should have as much rights to customize an android as someone has to customize an iphone without jailbreaking. They advertise what "droid does" but they don't claim droid = open.

Titanium Backup actually has a convenient interface for doing this. Requires root though. Be careful not to remove something important (I removed com.android.mms and was unable to receive sms messages).

Did you solve your sms problem?

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


text:
Some application require 'root access', what is it, what is the risks, and how can we make it available?

Possible Duplicate:
Are there any risks to rooting a device?

I download the screenshot to use on my Nexus One (N1) but it can not run and said it requires root access. What is it, how can I allow that and what risks/notes to take when letting them the "admin" access like that?

Please see my related questions/answers here and here.
In short:

Root gives you full administrator access to your phone to do things that it normally cannot do (take screenshots, [free] wifi tethering, overclocking, etc).
You will void your warranty (but you can typically unroot your phone to a previous state that makes this point moot).


text:
Upload battery status to a website
I would like to maintain a central list of the battery status of my devices. For my Linux laptops, I will write a small shell script that reads the battery information from the kernel and uploads it to my webserver.
I have no idea how to do this for Android devices, though. Basically I would like them to open http://example.com/tracker.php?id=cell&battery=0.67 every 30 minutes or so.
Is there an app that can do that? Although I have never programmed on Android yet, I have experience with Java and Linux. Is it possible to program something like that with reasonable effort?

There's a tool on Google Play called Batman, which collects battery status information in the background and stores it into a CSV file on SDCard. That done, you could use sync tools like e.g. FolderSync to have the file uploaded to your Linux machine in regular intervals, where you can have it processed by any tool you prefer.
Another variant (a little more tricky) could be using Tasker to create the data: Tasker offers the variable %BATT to give the current battery level in percent. It also supports things like HTTP_POST, so you could have Tasker post the current battery level in fixed intervals, and let your server do the rest (see the Tasker UserGuide for details).
Note: Tasker doesn't come for free, it's about 5 bucks. But you can download a free 7-day trial at the homepage for testing.

Batman is too slow for my purpose, I would like to know the current battery status. Tasker seems to be able to do this. Working on that myself will probably take more time than 3 €. Although I am a little uneasy with all the permissions that app wants …

I'm using Tasker for years now. I also use LBE to supervise permissions. So I can tell you Tasker did never ever abuse any of those permissions: not a single time something turned up in the logs. Of course I cannot speak for future versions, but in my eyes it seems a trustable app/dev.

You can also write a script shell for Android. You just need an app like Script Manager that can run your script periodically.
You can read value from the kernel like on a "vanilla" Linux : the actual battery capacity is stored in /sys/class/power_supply/battery/capacity.

In the Script Manager Console, I do not have either wget nor curl, so I am not sure whether I can send a HTTP request from that.

I don't know of an app that can do that, but it would be easy enough to write one if you already know Java. You can get started with programming Android by reading the guides and documentation on the official site for Android Developers.
Do remember that once you've started programming, you should ask questions about that on our sister site Stack Overflow, which has a lively community of Android programmers. This site is for questions written from a user's point-of-view only.


text:
How can I download an MP3 to my phone instead of opening it in a music player?
I'm trying to download podcast MP3s to my phone so I can listen to them in my car. Ideally, I'd like to be able to Chrome-to-Phone them from my computer at home, and then choose  to download and play them back from my device once I get in my car.
The problem is that when I send an MP3 URL to my phone, the browser only gives me the option of playing the audio directly in a media player. This is a really poor experience because it can't properly buffer the podcast file for smooth playback and it doesn't seem to allow me to play in the background.

I tried both Download All Files and using ASTRO's "Enable Browser Downloads". The screenshot above was taken with both apps installed. I've also tried using Google Listen to download podcasts, but I can never seem to use that without the download getting corrupted or the app crashing in some way.
Does anyone know what I need to do to be able to download MP3s instead of just playing them back immediately?

Have you tried using a different browser?

@eldarerathis I've tried both the stock CM browser and Dolphin HD. Both behave the same.

For what it's worth, this worked for me™.  Note that I downloaded an MP3 from DropBox (https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/music/knocker.mp3?w=894245c0, although you'll probably get "Access Denied" if you try that URL), and I was using Android 4.  But: I clicked the "Chrome To Phone" button, my phone chirped, and I saw the little downward-pointing animated arrow, quickly replaced by a notification that said "Download Complete".

You can try ADM download manager. Or hold URL and press save link.

Are you able to Chrome-to-Phone a page containing the link to the mp3 you want? If so, Dolphin (and most most every Android browser) will allow you to "save link as" (or similar) when you long-press on it. This will download the file instead of trying to play or stream it.
More cumbersome solutions include downloading the mp3 you want on your PC then transferring via Dropbox or syncing via doubleTwist (or even their AirSync for-pay feature). Doubletwist even has its own built in podcast features much like iTunes. BigCaseyDog's answer about Amazon MP3 would be a very similar alternative to Dropbox.
FWIW, I'm a Pocket Casts fan for the purposes of this very question - I was stuck with the same problem you describe until I fell in love with their download feature, among other things.

You could always upload the music to Amazon's free Cloud Player (included both online at www.amazon.com and in the Amazon MP3 app for Android) on your home computer. Then, download the Amazon MP3 app on your phone (if it's not already installed). Get it set up by typing in your Amazon account info, and sync in with your Cloud Drive, which lets you stream your music on your phone. Your music collection can either be streamed in the cloud, downloaded to the SD Card, or played with any media player on your phone.

The only way I've found to do this (without signing up for a new service) seems to be installing Opera Mobile. Opera has the ability to download files instead of just using Android's default Intents menu for MP3s.
According to comments in the original question, it looks like Android 4.0 can do this natively.


text:
How to auto start/stop tether if wifi is unavailable/available?
I use my Galaxy S as a wifi tether hotspot for my tablet and laptop, so tethering is always on (I have extended battery so it's ok). But if my phone is in the area where I have wifi internet (for example, at home) I don't need it to act as hotspot and want it to stop tethering and connect wifi. Is there a way to automatically start tethering if no wifi is available and stop it / connect wifi if wifi is available for long enough?

You can do so e.g. with Tasker, adapting the Wifi Tether Profile described in the Tasker Wiki -- provided your phone is rooted:
Requirements

rooted device
Tasker
Locale Execute Plug-In (no longer available -- but most likely no longer needed, either)
Wireless Tether for Root Users

Tasker-Tasks

Tether-On:
Plugin -> Execute Script -> Run Shell /data/data/android.tether/tether start 1, check "Use Root"
(with the Locale Execute Plugin, prefix the command with an ! to mark it as "root command")
Tether-Off:
Plugin -> Execute Script -> Run Shell /data/data/android.tether/tether stop 1
(with the Locale Execute Plugin, prefix the command with an ! to mark it as "root command")

Tasker-Profiles
You now can attach these tasks to any condition, such as e.g. "Wifi Near" with your networks name. You can also add things like "Wifi On" / "Wifi off" to above tasks to customize.
Detailed descriptions can be found in the linked Wiki.

Locale Execute Plug-In is dead


text:
Everything gets saved to the phone instead of SD card
I'm using the Samsung Galaxy Gio, and my problem is that all my apps get saved to the phone, using up all the storage. I've got space left on my SD card but it doesn't want to install anything there. I found a function that lets you move apps to SD card but sadly it doesn't work with 99% of the apps installed.
How do I solve this problem?

Background
Android has specific rules regarding the installation of applications and their physical location. It works like and hierarchical structure:

If the app has a specified location by the developer, this takes priority.
If it is not specified in the app, then the default install location is used.

Android has 3 identifiers for app storage location: that may be mentioned on the application manifest android:installLocation:

"internalOnly":

The application must be installed on the internal device storage only. If this is set, the application will never be installed on the external storage. If the internal storage is full, then the system will not install the application.

"auto":

The application may be installed on the external storage, but the system will install the application on the internal storage by default. If the internal storage is full, then the system will install it on the external storage.

"preferExternal":

The application prefers to be installed on the external storage (SD card). There is no guarantee that the system will honor this request. The application might be installed on internal storage if the external media is unavailable or full, or if the application uses the forward-locking mechanism (not supported on external storage).

Old applications may have no choice but to install on the internal storage, as per the Google Documentation:

The ability for your application to install on the external storage is a feature available only on devices running API Level 8 (Android 2.2) or greater. Existing applications that were built prior to API Level 8 will always install on the internal storage and cannot be moved to the external storage (even on devices with API Level 8).

What can I do?
You can manage the installed applications and set their storage location, all from one place:

Tap "home" to return to your device home screen;
Tap your device "menu" button;
Depending on your device, you either have to:

Tap "Manage apps";
Tap "Settings" > "Applications" > "Manage applications".

Now access the third tab where it reads "USB Storage" or "On SD card" (again, varies with the device);
Here are listed all the applications that are allowed to be moved to your External Storage, tab over one to bring up more options about it;
When the application details panel opens, you have a button "Move to SD card", use it to move that application to your External Storage;
Press "back" to return to the list. If you've moved the app to the external memory, you will notice that a green tick is present on the right side on the list, to let you know that the application file is currently on your External Storage.

This is a safe guide to have your OS managing the applications and moving then from Internal Storage to External Storage without hacks or tricks. You can read all about it on the Google Official Documentation.

As the sdcard could become inaccessible (e.g. when mounted via USB to a computer, or when removed), there are some groups of apps which cannot and should not be installed on external storage -- as they could not keep up their work in those cases. These include:

apps using widgets (widgets could no longer update if the storage is gone)
apps using services (these services would break then)
apps providing sync adapters (these adapters would be inaccessible)

Most of these apps are not even able to be moved to sdcard, as their developers declared them "internalOnly" (see Zuul's answer). But some developers forget about this, and so it might happen you move an app which you better had not -- and then wonder about above mentioned things breaking (most users notice this with widgets only). So better keep this in mind as well when moving apps to external storage.

You also have to keep in mind that move apps to sdcard will make them slower, and since they still keep data on internal storage, there can be some annoying side effects: for example, if you move Twitter for Android to sdcard, you will have to login again every time.
This link has some good tips about what you should and shouldn't do: http://techgage.com/article/moving_your_non-movable_android_apps_to_an_sd_card/


text:
Trusting the manufacturer like Google Play
I just purchased a Toshiba Excite 10.  I was surprised when I attempted to update manufacturer-bundled software and found that I couldn't because it wasn't installing through Google Play.
Is there a way to make my tablet understand that an app downloaded or upgraded through my OEM is just as safe as something downloaded through Google?

You should go to Settings -> Security and check the option: Unknown Sources (or something like that). then your tablet would allow you to install apps from everywhere.

This option should obviously be turned back off when you're done.

Isn't this a security hole, allowing anyone to install apps on my tablet?

@lacqui maybe it makes security problem, but when this is not checked, you are never able to install any app from other sources than Google play. And, I always turn this option ON without any problems, because anyway all apps require your permission to install, except when you have rooted your phone and some malicious app installs another app silently!

Because there's no reason that the default option should be to allow all packages from anywhere. If you need to install exotic packages, it's better to disable the protection then, instead of leaving it always off. It's like asking "why should I have the safety on when using guns, I'm not an idiot". Why not use it when it's there. You have no way of knowing what situations your tablet will be put in (other people using it etc).

@RichardBorcsik: one possible scenario is if a malicious app tried to trick you into click through the install button, for instance, it might be a game that asks you to quickly and repeatedly tap on the area where the install button usually is, with the right timing some people might accidentally click through the installation prompt without realizing it until it's too late. Gun safety exists for similar reason, anyone with little knowledge of guns can disable them, it's there to prevent pressing the trigger by accident, not to prevent the shooting itself.


text:
Is there any study on how which services/sensors consume the battery?
I am looking for some study/comparison on how battery-consuming are specific services/sensors (3G, Wifi, GPS, Bluetooth, accelerometer) in Android devices. I know that the exact answer might differ depending on a phone but the question is general - which sensors are more consuming than others.
Has anyone stumbled across something like that?

On my HTC One X, the screen is by far the biggest drain.

Of course GPS consumes the most.

If you look at this video from the Google I/O conference and the slides you can see that they show how much WiFi, the CPU, screen, GPS, accelerometer etc. use in a device.
Here is the video and the slides.
A quick summary in case the links go down:

This shows the amount of battery used by the components in milliamps (mA). Another unit needed is milliamp hours (mAh) which is what battery capacity is measured in, a typical smartphone might have 1600mAh capacity. Having just the screen on we can see how long the device may last by dividing the capacity (1600 mAh) by the usage (~100 mA) giving us 16 hours of use with just the LCD screen on.
It's an interesting video if you take the time to watch the whole thing. It discusses wake locks, where an app will wake up the device to update itself, and how they affect battery life which is an aspect I don't usually consider about applications.

For the actual sensors (accelerometer etc) they report there nominal power consumption in the api.  There are apps that let you see this, I use Z-DeviceTest for this.  In practice the values for the sensors are normally dwarfed by the cpu which has to be active to do anything with the data and you often have the screen on which is of course even worse normaly.


text:
Customize Android 4.0 (ICS) Bluetooth HID
I have a Targus bluetooth presentation remote. It acts a mouse amoungt other things. I was hoping to find an app that allows me to capture the different buttons on the mouse and customize them. For instance one button just types "b" when pressed which has no use. I want an app that is able to capture the button and reassign it to something more useful.
Any Ideas?

My first thought was to a Wiimote app like Wiimote Controller. These talk to the Wiimotes via bluetooth and map the controller buttons to keyboard inputs in the OS. I doubt these apps would work correctly with your Targus remote, but this kind of thing should be theoretically possible.

Custom keyboard layouts is an official feature of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.
It's called "User-installable keymaps", see more here.
If you don't want to wait/upgrade:
Besides this, Android uses  keymaps also for bluetooth HID devices (your device, some number keypads, Apple bluetooth keyboard, etc.). More info how to change this is here.


text:
What is this VPN setting good for?
I have a Huawei U8160 (also known as Vodafone 858 Smart) which is running CyanogenMod7.2
There are settings for VPN which are empty. I was wondering if the VPN server setting should be set to a real server?
Or should I just not touch it?

Enter your server's detail.

i don't know i'm asking

I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you're asking here. It sounds like you may need to simply read some tutorials/documentation about how VPNs work or how to set one up for yourself. That's a bit out-of-scope for this site, if it's what you're looking for.

i've a simple question : does vpn server must be a real one?

What would be the counterpart to a real VPN server be?

I think you stumbled upon the VPN settings and just want to know what it is?

If I'm right here, maybe this question should be edited  to ask 'What are those VPN settings good for?'. Wouldn't that be a legitimate question some unaware (of VPN) users might ask?

@ce4: Sure, I'd think that "What are the VPN settings for?" is a perfectly fine question. OP: I'm still not clear on what you're asking. As Flow noted, what would be the alternative to a "real" VPN server? What would you enter into those settings otherwise? Do you actually need to set up a VPN or are you simply asking what those settings do? Please try to clarify.

Its not an Android issue.. So, I am voting to close.

A VPN is a virtual private network.
Your device connects to a VPN server through a public connection and tunnels a second virtual and private (to you) connection through the VPN server to see all devices that are protected behind the VPN server (such as a company's whole network infrastructure for example).
This feature is mostly used for road warriors that want to connect to a company's internal network resources like email / internal web sites and so on. Other uses are: Securely connect two different company sites virtually, working from a home office...
It's generally not for normal users (Cyanogenmod includes it for some power users that also connect to a VPN).
See Wikipedia for more.
Regarding your question: Leave the setting empty, you just don't need it most probably.


text:
Operating System isn't working in Onda V812
I bought an Onda V812, a Chinese tablet. Since beginning, the operating system hasn't worked correctly.
Now it simply doesn't boot. I'd like to reset the tablet and maybe install a new version of Android to see if it works.  The Onda V812 specifications are very good so I'd like to believe that there should be a solution to my problem.
My e-mail complaints to their support team have not been replied.

What's your specific question?

When you say the tablet will not boot does that mean that nothing happens when you hold down the power button? Or does it start to boot but freezes on the Android screen, never reaching the lock screen?

Have you tried holding down the power button and the volume up button at the same time until you see the dead android and red triangle, if you then tap the volume up button once you should see a list of options including factory reset(complete data removal) which will reset the device to the basic state it was in when you bought it


text:
Where is the mount point/folder for a USB pen drive mounted on Marshmallow?
Prior to Android Marshmallow, I used StickMount to access my USB OTG pen drive.  When I tried it first time on my Nexus 5 I saw a native notification and notification from StickMount.
Stickmount usually mounts the pen drive as a folder under storage folder. This helped me to use my own file explorer and other apps.  However the stock notification has two buttons:

Upon touching Explore, a native browser opens and shows the file. I would like to use my own file explorer like ES File Explorer.
By using the stock USB feature, I would like to know the mount point (the path) of the mounted drive. Does any know or tried this feature?
Device info: Nexus 5, Android 6.0, rooted with stock ROM.
Following is the output of the command mount in the terminal emulator after inserting the USB drive:
u0_a137@hammerhead:/ $ mount
rootfs / rootfs ro,seclabel,relatime 0 0
tmpfs /dev tmpfs rw,seclabel,nosuid,relatime,mode=755 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,seclabel,relatime,mode=600 0 0
none /dev/cpuctl cgroup rw,relatime,cpu 0 0
proc /proc proc rw,relatime 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs rw,seclabel,relatime 0 0
selinuxfs /sys/fs/selinux selinuxfs rw,relatime 0 0
debugfs /sys/kernel/debug debugfs rw,seclabel,relatime 0 0
none /sys/fs/cgroup tmpfs rw,seclabel,relatime,mode=750,gid=1000 0 0
none /acct cgroup rw,relatime,cpuacct 0 0
tmpfs /mnt tmpfs rw,seclabel,relatime,mode=755,gid=1000 0 0
/dev/fuse /mnt/runtime/default/emulated fuse rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,noatime,user_id=1023,group_id=1023,default_permissions,allow_other 0 0
/dev/fuse /mnt/runtime/read/emulated fuse rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,noatime,user_id=1023,group_id=1023,default_permissions,allow_other 0 0
/dev/fuse /mnt/runtime/write/emulated fuse rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,noatime,user_id=1023,group_id=1023,default_permissions,allow_other 0 0
/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/system /system ext4 ro,seclabel,relatime,data=ordered 0 0
/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/userdata /data ext4 rw,seclabel,nosuid,nodev,noatime,nomblk_io_submit,noauto_da_alloc,errors=panic,data=ordered 0 0
/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/cache /cache ext4 rw,seclabel,nosuid,nodev,noatime,nomblk_io_submit,noauto_da_alloc,errors=panic,data=ordered 0 0
/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/persist /persist ext4 rw,seclabel,nosuid,nodev,relatime,nomblk_io_submit,nodelalloc,errors=panic,data=ordered 0 0
/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/modem /firmware vfat ro,context=u:object_r:firmware_file:s0,relatime,uid=1000,gid=1000,fmask=0337,dmask=0227,codepage=cp437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=lower,errors=remount-ro 0 0
tmpfs /storage tmpfs rw,seclabel,relatime,mode=755,gid=1000 0 0
/dev/fuse /storage/emulated fuse rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,noatime,user_id=1023,group_id=1023,default_permissions,allow_other 0 0
tmpfs /storage/self tmpfs rw,seclabel,relatime,mode=755,gid=1000 0 0
u0_a137@hammerhead:/ $

USB OTG works with ES File Explorer for me https://i.sstatic.net/hfndc.jpg

@Manubhargav, yes indeed this is even better!

Silly question but have you updated the App to the latest version(v4.0.2.9) after System update?and reboot the phone?

/mnt/media_rw/random-hex-id is the path you're looking for, where 'random-hex-id' is a folder name of format ABCD-EF01, e.g. E4E4-4394. Guess it took a random to actually be useful. You must have access to root.

Do you not mean /mnt/media_rw/random hex ID?

The hex ID is Volume Serial Number for use with FAT and NTFS file systems - see link for details. Not that it matters anyway.

Weird that you can see the external SD card without root but not the USB OTG drive mount point.

how do i get access to this folder without root?  my file explorer (Fx) says it's going to ask me for permission, but never does!

Well I'm having the exact same problem for a totally different reason, and I still can't get access... curse you Verizon!

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


text:
adb push not working on /system, read only
I can do adb push to /sdcard/ location but not /system on my android device.
sudo adb push lib/audio.primary.gmin.so system/lib/hw/
failed to copy 'lib/audio.primary.gmin.so' to 'system/lib/hw/audio.primary.gmin.so': Read-only file system

I tried some suggestions online
user$ adb remount
dm_verity is enabled on the system partition.
Use "adb disable-verity" to disable verity.
If you do not, remount may succeed, however, you will still not be able to write to these volumes.
remount of /system failed: Read-only file system
remount failed
user$ adb disable-verity
Verity already disabled on /system

Even after this, remount fails
user$ adb remount
dm_verity is enabled on the system partition.
Use "adb disable-verity" to disable verity.
If you do not, remount may succeed, however, you will still not be able to write to these volumes.
remount of /system failed: Read-only file system
remount failed

running below command on PC also does not work
sudo mount -o remount,rw /system
mount: can't find /system in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab

What should I do?
EDIT.
   which mount
    /bin/mount

adb version
Android Debug Bridge version 1.0.32

The output of mount command is as below
user$ mount
/dev/sda6 on / type ext3 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
none on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620)
tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,size=10%,mode=0755)
none on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=5242880)
none on /run/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/user/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=user)
/dev/sda5 on /media/Data type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,default_permissions,blksize=4096)
/dev/sda2 on /media/OS type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,default_permissions,blksize=4096)

What phone model, Android version please?

You have to root your device first.

And it doesn't help to run those sudo mount commands on your PC if you want to remount a partition on your Android device (the output from mount as well as sudo mount -o remount,rw /system clearly is not from the Android device, and your Linux machine doesn't have /system). You need to run those via ADB on the device, e.g. adb shell 'su -c "sudo mount -o remount,rw /system"'. As Vahid correctly pointed out, that requires your device to be rooted.

Thanks for help. Yes the device is already rooted. It is working now after I did reboot the device after running adb disable-verity. So a reboot is must it seems. After reboot the adb remount command works fine.

The sequence of commands that worked for me was
adb root
adb disable-verity
adb reboot
adb root
adb remount

If I don't reboot, remount does not succeed.

only the mouse become invisible happen here, not disabling the mouse

adb disable-verity gives me an error of error: closed. Is there a reason/fix for this?

I was having the same trouble, no access to my Download folder from TWRP. BUT I did realize a folder that for me was not read-only. Try pushing to /data/local/tmp:
./adb push fileToPush /data/local/tmp
At first I was able to push to /sideload as well, but then all of a sudden it became read-only, so somehow I found this tmp a post online mentioning this tmp folder, and for me it was writeable.  Good luck!

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


text:
Galaxy Nexus restarts non-stop before completely booting
I'm aware of the suddenly restarts of the Galaxy Nexus, but in my case it restarts before managing to boot completely and it does that in a non-stop loop. It happened while my phone was on a stand by mode and now I can't do much, so it is basically useless.
Is there anything I can do about it. Is it possible to reset it somehow? I tried to remove the battery, charge it and all that kind of stuff that I could do, but no luck so far.
I bought it through Amazon.com and the model is Samsung I9250 Galaxy Nexus 16GB (Unlocked), but I'm in Europe so warranty is something that would take sometime I guess.
Update: I also tried to follow these instructions but my computer cannot find the device. I'm stack in the ODIN MODE, Do Not Turn Off Target if I do the trick with the volume down button, otherwise it just restarts without completing the initial colorful effect. Any ideas?

I would unlock the bootloader, and flash a new image...
You can find all the information you need on this page:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1392310
Hope you found my answer helpful :)

I would like to have the original Google's ROM.. I haven't go through the article yet.. but is it going to work without me being able to start the phone?

You should be able to push the new image to the phone through fastboot mode.. If you can come in fastboot mode, its is almost always possible to save it...

And google image is possible to find here:
http://code.google.com/android/nexus/images.html
It is google which have uploaded them :)

Are you Danish? If so i can probably better help you on Androidforum DK, where i'm a mod. I have also translated the Toolkit into danish if you need it, right here:

Sorry, here is the link :)
http://androidforum.dk/showthread.php?8690-Opdateret-Samsung-Galaxy-Nexus-Toolkit-1-klik-s-unlock-root-og-recovery-metode&p=49162#post49162

And i have a wuistion on my own, if someone maybe could answer it for me? http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/19368/how-do-i-use-a-external-microphone-on-my-galaxy-nexus-to-video-recording

Thanks dev0 for all the info.. I'll deal with that soon most likely following that post, but not over the weekend :) I'm in denmark but I don't speak danish and we'll find a solution it would be nice to have here a canonical answer as well!

Okay great :)
I wil try and look in this thread every day, so if you need anymore help, i will properly be here :)
Have a nice weekend

It looks like I'm on brick mode.. :( I also tried to do that (https://plus.google.com/107538503004482952974/posts/K8wozE8zhzq).. but my computer refuses to recognize the device.. I'm stack on the odin mode. do not turn off target If I'm going to do the trick with the volume down key, otherwise it just restarts before completing the colorful effect during boot :(

Have you installed the drivers on your pc? The tool need the drivers, before it can recognize your device...

No luck.. I tried to follow the stuff with the ToolKit but didn't manage to restart/unlock or root or whatever... somehow windows recognized the device but I couldn't do much regarding that.. the ToolKit wouldn't find it.. :( I'll give you the bounty.. but I still have a brick :) Any idea if I could just go to my company's retail shop and ask them if they could do something about it even though I didn't buy it from denmark?

You can get it fixed in denmark, by Telecare, but it will cost money...
Are you sure you have installed the USB driver correctly on the computer? Via PDANet the¨ software

Via the PDANet software?

Something might have overwritten some files needed during boot.
Go into recovery and do a factory reset. Yes this is the same thing as factory reset in the Settings but the difference is that you dont need to boot the OS to do it.
There is usually a button combination you press to get into recovery. Google it for your device. Once you factory reset, try again.
WARNING: Factory Reset will wipe all user data on your device. Sorry.
If you reboot and everything is working, then it was your user data.
If you reboot and the same thing happens, then that means your actual system is corrupted. This means like dev0 said, you have to flash a new image or send it in for warranty.
Just because you flash a new image, doesnt mean you cant get a stock rom image. Chances are, someone on XDA has a stock ROM image that is exactly the same system as when you first got it. People have these images in the event someone wants to go from a custom ROM or version of Android to stock.
So yeah, follow dev0's links and advice. Rooting and unlocking the bootloader might void your warranty so find out before you do it though!

Can't do much.. the phone is not recognized by the computer :( read my last comment from dev0's answer

Hmm I just googled this. It doesn't help but helps me :) Now I wont do a default factory setting on my Galaxy Nexus. Clicky.
You can try this page if it has the same functionality as Samsung Galaxy S

Nope.. no help ;)

Do you use Cyanogen ROM? If so, try other roms such as MIUI.
I had this problem exactly as you on my Nexus S with Cyanogen and after migrating to MIUI all the reboots, booting animation loops, shuting downs on standby and etc. gone.

I have a similar issue with my Galaxy Note after installing a lot of apps and filling up the 32GB SD card. I haven't managed to figure out what exactly the problem is, maybe it is totally different (since there are different Android versions).
Anyway, I'd start by removing the SD card, but Nexus doesn't have a removable card slot...
If you're using stock ROM, check out if there's an updated version of your ROM available. Search xda-developers forum, it may have a thread that lists all stock ROMs available for your device.
Some of the stock ROMs are "wipe" and others are "non-wipe". You can try flashing non-wipe stock ROMs on your device and see if it fixes the issue. (you don't need root or custom recovery for this, if Nexus works the same way as my Note). But anyway, I'd recommend making a nandroid backup before doing so.
If you have USB debugging enabled already, you might be able to get the system logs from a PC, if the phone gets to the point during the boot that can connect to adb. But if you don't have the USB debugging enabled, since you can't boot and go to settings, this won't work. If you could get logs of the system, it may give you a clue of what is causing the phone to restart.
If it didn't fix the issue, I think your only option is to boot into recovery (hold power + home + volume for 10 seconds or so) and do a factory reset.

I have exactly the same problem with my GN and followed the instructions in http://support.sprint.com/support/tutorial/Perform_a_hardware_factory_reset_Galaxy_Nexus/37165-396
Please note that all of your data will be deleted.

You've followed those instructions and still have the problem? Or did those instructions solve it? In the latter case: it would be preferable to include the essential parts of the answer here, and provide the link for reference. Otherwise, your answer becomes useless in case the link dies.


text:
How do I find out if an app can be moved to the SD card before I install it?
Is there a way I can do this?  Too many times I install an app, only to uninstall it, because it can't be moved to SD.

Sometimes the developer writes if its supported in the app description.

Some related discussion: How to find only SD card movable applications on the market?

if your phone is rooted you can use link2sd :
play store link
Home page
but you'll have to partition your SD card first using mini tool partition wizard
and here's the Tutorial on how to partition your SD card
This Can move immovable and -of course- movable apps more efficiently than app2sd and saves more space because normal moving moves a small part of the app to SD card ,while Link2SD moves a big part of the app(but not all of it(user experience))
If your phone is not rooted:
1.Market apps : you can't know because market downloads apps and installs them instantly.
2.apps which you have their APK you may find out by looking in the manifest.xml file inside the APK in android:installLocation="auto" as @Rafael said.

If you have the APK file you can open it (e.g. by apktool) and in its AndroidManifest.xml file, there should be a string, something like android:installLocation="auto". If you cannot find that string, then that app can only be installed in internal storage of the device.


text:
What is the difference between the email app and the gmail app?
I know the Email app can fetch multiple accounts at same time, but apart from that are there any other major differences?
If I only need to fetch stuff from the one gmail account, which app should I use? I only connect to the internet using wifi, so offline usability is desirable.
Running Android 4.1.1 on a Nexus 7.

Is the "email app" the one which is installed by default on a (Samsung) device?

The main difference that I can see is the type of accounts that are supported:

The Gmail APP is limited to accounts from Google: username@gmail.com

read and respond to your conversations online & offline
Manage multiple accounts
View and save attachments
Set up label notifications

Email APP: username@your_domain.com
The main feature is that it works with all email providers, but its a very basic APP, you can send and receive emails, but no search capabilities present.

@RichardBorcsik Are you referring to Google Apps for Business?

Well as of now we can gmail/gooogle account plus the aol, yahoo mail and hotmail also in the Gmail APP..@Zuul

The Gmail application speaks Gmail's own proprietary protocol back to the Gmail server, whereas the Email application speaks open protocols such as POP3 or IMAP, as well as supporting ActiveSync.  The Email application also has somewhat better support for multiple accounts.
If you are only using a single Gmail account then it is better to use the Gmail application, but if you're using multiple accounts, or non-Gmail accounts, you'll want to use Email.  Personally, I use Gmail for my Gmail account (which I only use for Google-specific purposes) and Email for my IMAP.

The Gmail app works just fine for multiple accounts. I manage three separate accounts and it works well for me. (Early iterations of the app didn't work with multiple accounts very well, but they fixed that some time ago.)

Does it support a unified inbox across all accounts? That's the big feature that was always missing for me, even recently.


text:
Get Gingerbread back on Samsung Galaxy Y
I have a Samsung Galaxy Y mobile. In internet I saw a post that update your Samsung Galaxy Y from 2.3 to 4.0. I tried the steps but I went wrong now my mobile getting rebooted again and again. How can I get my previous version?

Restore the nanddroid backup you made.

Thank you all. I got the Solution here

If you can enter into Recovery Mode(with Power and Volume Up buttons pressed on startup) try to restore a nandroid backup(if made) or flash a new ROM.
If you can't enter into Recovery Mode you need to reflash a stock ROM using ODIN. You need to choose the Right Stock ROM for your region. See XDA-Developers, it also contains a guide to flash these files with ODIN.
Then you can go on trying to update to ICS or JB.


text:
Playing subtitles - and only subtitles - on Android
I've decided to embark on learning Spanish.  Last time I learned a foreign language, I was in a foreign country watching a lot of American TV subtitled in the local language.  Seeing the translation of things said on the show was very helpful.
I'd like to watch my Netflix movies (and possibly other sources as well, like Amazon streaming) with Spanish subtitles, but Netflix generally does not support them.
There are a large number of free, independently-made subtitle archives out there; it would be an easy task to download the subtitles for a movie or TV show I'm about to watch.
I'd like to sit in my TV room and watch movies or TV shows on my TV, while the subtitles are displayed on my phone.  While there are a few video players out there that support external subtitles, I have been unable to find a way to do subtitle-only viewing. Is there an app or some other solution?

After more searching, I found SubtitlePlayer in the Google Play Store.
It seems to work adequately for what I need, but because its name is two words jammed together, doesn't show up when you search for "Subtitle" in the market.
Also, the page says it needs 'Unicode' subtitles; after a few tries, I got it to work correctly with UTF-8 encoding, without a BOM.

That's a nice find.

I have never tried this but one thing that comes on the top of my mind is to use a video that has nothing but a black background play on your mobile. You can then add subtitles to it and may be increase the subtitle size, change the position etc to suit you. Hope this helps :)


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Using old Android phones as multi channel dash cam
Now a days the Android phones are having quite a good computing power and good optics. I have heard and used my daily driver Android phone as my dash cam.
I have also heard about dedicated dual channel dash cams which can record from two cameras (ideally one placed to record what is happening at car's front and another on rear and combine those to into one single video).
With few spare Android phones lying around I thought of building myself a dual channel dash cam purely using old Android phones.
The challenges I have:

The separate feeds from both phones should be merged to show side by side.
Can the phones be kept on and recording 24x7 even when the car is parked?

Advantages:

It also acts as a CCTV for my garage area recording all activities.
Android phones take considerable time to start up.  And in this mode the recording will be available continuously. Also the dash cam app need not be auto started during boot.

Disadvantages:

Not sure about its impact on battery life.
Not sure about its impact on phone's and camera's life.

Overlaying the latitude, longitude, speed, date and time information on video.
Retain videos for later use on tap of the screen.  Usually these kind of dash cam apps will run in loop erasing the previously recorded video so that it will not run out space. On tapping the screen during some moments to preserve it copies the current recording block as a new file so that it is available for future use. In front only dash cam scenario this works well.  How can i do this in front and back dash cam so that the rear dash cam also preserves on tapping the front cam?

Question:
Is there any solution that addresses this need? If not any partial solutions to the challenges?
I know this sounds like a good question for a project on Instructables, but this involves considerable Android software and power user's experience.  In case if this sounds a bit of out of topic, please let me know in comments.

I used to use a Galaxy Nexus as a dash cam and it would discharge the battery faster than it would charge. Besides, the video looked awful. I ended paying $20 for a simple dash cam that was much better. I indeed wished to use my phone as a high end dash cam with more functions, but it seems that even the available apps don't have those functions so you would have to develop your own app.

Most of your requirements can be met by either a custom software or some apps on the Play Store.
May be not merging video. You will need to upload chunks of video periodically, be it hourly, daily or weekly, to some central location that knows about all devices. (Some server in the cloud? your home PC? May be you can set the save location of the apps to a OneDrive/Google Drive folder)
I don't think there's any harm to the camera on devices on atleast most devices. I've seen people use droids for home surveillance for a while.
Although you'll have to make sure the device isn't placed in direct sunlight and not exposed to extreme summer heat. Most devices can shut down automatically when the heat is more than it can handle, though it is mostly to prevent heat damage from an overloaded/misbehaving CPU, not the heat from the environment.
Battery Life
Main issue would be the battery life. Even when simply recording by using a charger from the car (usually 1A. May be 2.4A if you're really lucky to get one of those charger adapters.)
Your camera won't last more than a hour or two under it's own power. (Even the latest devices can only last 5-6 hours with screen on) You can may be attach a battery pack which uses solar panels to charge.
I don't know the effect on the battery when its connected to a constant power supply. Many new units can handle a good amount of abuse, but older ones may have issues. Although this isn't an issue for you as long as you have a way to constantly power the device.
Things may become a bit simpler if you only need to record when the car is running. This will reduce the battery issues significantly.
Due to the openness of the question, you may have better luck posting this on a discussion group/forum or something like Reddit.

Thanks. Things may become a bit simpler if you only need to record when the car is running. is indeed  a valid suggestion, but then the phone takes considerable time to boot and the app has to start. I can keep this as a last resort if other means are not working out.

you can use apps like Automate or Macrodroid to automate locking and unlocking the device when power is connected. Devices drain much less power when in sleep mode. Especially devices running Android M thanks to Doze mode. Since it will start charging when you start the car, it can be a good compromise.


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Can I use Jio SIM in the second slot of my Redmi 3s Prime phone?
Can I use Jio SIM in the second slot of my Redmi 3s Prime phone? The second SIM slot is a nano type SIM slot. Please clear my doubt as soon as you can.

Define 'use'. Since your phone does not support voLTE, you have to use Reliance app Jio4GVoice to make phone calls using your Jio SIM. Of course for Internet connectivity you dont need this app.

Not all dual SIM phones have 4G + 4G support.
It is mostly 4G + 2G(or sometimes 3G).
It is not predetermined which SIM slot will be able to use the 4G bands and which won't.
Usually when a dual SIM phone is booted for the first time with two SIM cards, on the setup screen it asks the user to select which SIM card would be used for mobile data. Whichever is selected becomes the primary data SIM slot and is subsequently used for 4G LTE or 3G whichever the phone supports. The second slot in most phones either cannot use data or even if it does, cannot use the 4G or 3G bands- whichever the phone supports and the first SIM slot can use.
In case of hybrid dual SIM phones with single SIM does not arise as there is only one SIM card in use, and the device will automatically use whichever SIM slot is occupied as it's primary data SIM and will switch to 4G if available.
There is no official confirmation of Redmi 3S Prime being a 4G + 4G phone. Seeing how it is a budget phone, it is most likely 4G + 3G/2G.
If you are booting the device for the first time after inserting both the SIM cards (doesn't matter if Jio SIM is in second SIM slot, you can select the Jio SIM when prompted to select which SIM you want to use for data and it'll work.
If you inserted the Jio SIM in the second slot after having already booted the device, it probably won't work. What you have to do in this case is reset the phone, and when you see the setup screen, select the slot in which you have put the Jio SIM, and you'll be good to go.

Yes, you can use on sim slot 2, only if it supports 4G too.  I am now using in my second slot in my Galaxy E5 4G mobile.

I have seen in some internet videos that jio works in second sim slot of redmi 3s after changing certain network and access point settings. But in some videos,internet is working but calling is not possible. When i tried on my own redmi 3s, I too could not get a volte sign and so could not make a call. However,we can install jio4gvoice app and call using that app without any problem.

Jio4GVoice app automatically reads the first SIM slot.So put the Jio Sim in the first slot if you are using an LTE device. If you are using a voLTE device, you can use either of the SIM slots.


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Android Wear smartwatch Samsung Gear Live won't turn on, while charging
I have the Android Wear smartwatch Samsung Gear Live and it wont turn on. When I'm trying to turn it on while charging (and it was charging for at least 3 hours) it will show the initial logo, then the booting animations and at one point before completing the screen will turn black. When pressing the button to turn on again it shows the charging battery animation.
Is there anything I can do to hard reset maybe?!
I tried to hold the button for long time or unplugging it from the power supply, but it keeps trying to boot and stops without success.

Someone with 300+ maybe could create the samsung-gear-live tag :)

What happens when you plug in to charge?  Does the display show the large battery that fills up?  I'm wondering if it's not charging properly, because what you describe sounds a lot like what would happen if you tried to turn it on with minimal battery.  I've heard reports of the watch being unable to properly charge from an outlet after long periods of inactivity, where the (inexplicable) fix is to let the first ~5% charge while connected to a laptop, then plug into the wall, did you go a week+ with it powered down and out of battery?

@MattDavis actually it was a battery issue after all.. so my charger is not working.. I tried with another one and it work.. which brings us to another problem obviously, but it's unrelated with the watch! So I might delete that question completely..

most of the time they will charge from a laptop usb and not an outlet.Also if you take it apart and disconnect the battery it will fire up 90 percent of the time.

This doesn't make sense, laptop ports are frequently underpowered compared to wall chargers and not the other way around.

authors: Сергей Лысаченко


text:
What is the pathname to my application executable?
I wish to get the pathname for an application I am creating and have installed via Eclipse and ADB.  My application is installed as I see an icon that I can invoke to launch successfully my application.  I also see a file: /data/app/com.mydomain.myapp-36.apk however, if I try to invoke that file from the shell I get an error of can't execute: permission denied, even though I am root.  I notice that for sshDroid, I can invoke it from the shell using the path: /data/data/berserker.android.apps.sshdroid/dropbear/ssh but I find no corresponding path for my application /data/data/com.mydomain.myapp/ as that directory only contains the subdirectories: cache, files, and lib.
Is there something I can do when building on installing my application so that my application can be invoked from the shell, or do I just need help locating the pathname for my application?

How are you attempting to invoke it?  You can't run.apk's directly, you have to launch their main activity.  They are not executables, they're basically zip files.

To launch applications, use the ActivityManager (am command).
Apks are not directly executable as they are just archives containing runnable code.
If you have packaged natively executable binaries in your app, you need to extract them first, then set permissions according to executable permissions (at least --x--x--x) and launch it through an instance of shell.


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How do I check if I have Cyanogenmod on my phone?
Is it possible to check using shell whether or not Cyanogenmod is installed on a device?
In other words, something like uname -a (which tells the system Linux version and architecture).
Can the version be determined as well?

I tried to do uname -a on my CM10.1 (Samsung Galaxy S2) on the built-in Terminal app.
It returns:

Linux localhost 3.0.31-CM-g17c7b6e #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue Feb 19 01:11:17
  PST 2013 armv71 GNU/Linux

Kernel version: 3.0.31-CM-g17c7b6e
SMP: Symmetric Multi-Processor support
PREEMPT: kernel preemption is enabled
Kernel date: Tue Feb 19 01:11:17 PST 2013
Processor: armv71

Can you explain the rest of the output? What is g17c7b6e, PREEMPT?

@KshitizSharma See my updates.

Umm, what if Android system is stock but kernel is of CM? Although it is not something we see everyday, I think uname -a might not be perfect but it's quite good! uname -a also might not be best if custom kernel is used and developer decided to tweak the name.

Another way is to simply go to Settings→About phone, where you should see (depending on your CyanogenMod version) an item "CyanogenMod updates", and (with all CM versions) "CyanogenMod-Version":

In my CM12, I can do:
adb shell getprop | grep -i cyanogenmod

and the result it shows is:
[ro.build.host]: [cyanogenmod]
[ro.cmlegal.url]: [https://www.cyanogenmod.org/docs/privacy]
[ro.error.receiver.system.apps]: [org.cyanogenmod.bugreport]
[ro.rommanager.developerid]: [cyanogenmod]

If you don't see cyanogenmod anywhere then either build.prop is deliberately tweaked to not display CM anywhere, or the device isn't running Cyanogenmod at all.

/etc/CHANGES.txt and /etc/CHANGELOG-CM.txt also can be considered.


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How to remove occasional pop-up messages from the provider
My Milestone is producing pop-up messages every half an hour with "your credits are low please add more credits". It is really annoying. Is there any way to block them?

Not without either loading a custom ROM that doesn't have these popups. These are probably "features" added for your carrier, so a more "generic" ROM would probably stop them.


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Merging duplicate contact entries from multiple sources
I have multiple copies of the same contacts on my phone, from the Google account associated, and phone contacts etc.
Eg., for a single contact I might have:

2 copies on the phone
1 copy on my Google account (synced)
another copy in some other location

This happened on my HTC Wildfire a year ago and now I'm using a Samsung Galaxy S2.
Is there a way I can merge all related contacts and delete the other extra copies? It'd be helpful if I could do this from my PC.

Just for clarification: Are all copies sync'd to your GMail account? Or are some just stored differently (e.g. on SIM or phone storage)?

Remember: when creating a contact, you can decide where to store it. Usually, there are at least 3 choices: Google, SIM, phone.
If I read your question correctly, it looks like you have a copy in each of these places. In this case, Tirath's suggestion doesn't work, as GMail will only see what's sync'd there (and phone + SIM don't get sync'd). You then might want to take a look at apps like Contact Remover (to ease deletion of the duplicates), or Contact Remover Plus which also offers to merge or move them.

Merge + can link contacts from different accounts together.

Your answer could be improved with additional supporting information. Please [edit] to add further details, such as citations or documentation, so that others can confirm that your answer is correct. You can find more information on how to write good answers in the help center.

Sorry @Community Bot. I had exactly the problem described above, I tried 6 applications and one of them was Merge +, was the only one able to link accounts together, the other 5 apps removed duplicate informations, but did not link them together.
I tried

Cleaner - Doppelte Kontakte zusammenfügen
Kontakte zusammenführen
Doppelte Kontaktverschmelzung
Duplicate Contacts Finder - Contact Optimizer Pro
Contacts Optimizer
Contacts Sync Fix
Doppelte Kontakte Remover


text:
Using OTG cables with Nexus 7 (2012) without rooting
Is it possible to use OTG Cables with Nexus 7 (2012) without rooting? Can Nexus Media Importer be useful here?

Yes, you can use Nexus Media Importer.
From its description:

This is the only non-root solution for devices that do not provide
  native support for external storage.

Other references:

Usb otg without root access for nexus 7 found!


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Gmail App Expanded Email Notification Not Collapsed Automatically
Recently I freshly installed the Gmail app from the Play Store and it had this nice feature which offered a peek of my email in the notification area whenever I swiped down the notification tray; it also had the reply/delete buttons.
But now all of a sudden that feature is literally gone. Now, whenever I receive an email I do get the notification but in kind of that classic way and to have a preview of my email and the reply/delete buttons to appear I have to slide down that notification (either by dragging it by one finger or tap-holding that notif. and then dragging it down as mentioned here on Google's Help Page) a bit every single time which is kinda annoying.
I have Android 4.2.1 installed on my phone. And have checked all related settings to no avail :|
Please help :(

I think it automatically expands if it is the last notification... (or the "next on the list" when you dismiss one)

@Shywim Thanks for replying. It is already the last notification (the first one being my Web Root Antivirus; which is a permanent notification). But in my case it doesn't automatically expands like it was earlier :3

This is standard behaviour, however I think it may have been different in older versions of Android/different ROM's.
On all the apps on my device that use expanded notifications, only one seems to be expanded by default. There is (most likely) an option for developers to make it expanded by default, and this may have been recently disabled in the gmail application.
As this is done at a program level, there would be no way to change it.


text:
Getting the activities of the user
Is it possible to get a list of user activities? I want to know when the phone was opened, when it was locked, etc. Just the basic things.

I can't think of any way to get this currently, short of making your own app that checks everything.


text:
adb input swipe to unlock slide screen lock and open notifications
When I use the command adb input swipe, the slider slides all the way to the right, but does not 'click', so the screen does not unlock. I calculate the coordinates based on the (not visible) 'swipe area'. The same issue occurs when I try to drag the notifications open, I slide it all the way down, but it does not 'click' so notifications don't stay open.
I am using python 2.7 to call the adb functions, I think that may play a role too, but I've tried every form of os.system, subprocess.Popen, and subprocess.call I can think of.
Any idea how I can make this work?


text:
How can I set an alarm for the first Monday of each month?
I can set an alarm for every Monday, but how can I set one for only the 1st Monday each month?
I can have calendar events set in Google that are for first Monday, is there a way for an alarm to be set on a calendar event?

You didn't mention whether you are willing to buy an app to do this. I recently got an app called Alarm Plus Millenium that I see can do this (and lots more).  I mainly got it for its task manager abilities, but I also needed a newer alarm clock app to replace my old unsupported Gentle Alarm, and this app was the best I could find for what I wanted.
Also, FWIW, I've had some email exchanges with the developer, and he was very responsive, quick to reply, and although in Paris, was very proficient in English (my only language).
Just saw your question about setting an alarm for Calendar events.  Yes, Google Calendar allows you to set all sorts of alarms for the events.  You can set more than one if you want.


text:
Why does SSH Server (Ice Cold Apps) with a command fail?
I wish to ssh into my rooted Android Samsung Galaxy S4 v4.4.2 phone and run a command.  I have SSH Server installed.  If I just SSH, it works fine:
bash-3.2$ ssh -p 35151 10.1.10.22
u0_a253@jfotevzx:/ $ pwd
/

But, if I pass a command to execute to ssh it fails:
bash-3.2$ ssh -p 35151 10.1.10.22 pwd
exec request failed on channel 0

What does exec request failed on channel 0 mean? How can I get the SSH Server from Ice Cold Apps to work with a command to execute?  Is there a different ssh android app that I could use instead that would work?

I found a forum post that indicates that the Ice Cold ssh has a deficiency that causes this issue.  By switching to SSH Droid, I was able to resolve the issue.

I tried this app just now and was able to reproduce this error. On the other hand, Servers Ultimate Pro doesn't have any said issues. It worked well with the command you mentioned in the question.


text:
Google Keyboard vs Android Keyboard (AOSP)
Is there a difference between Google Keyboard, which was recently release on the Play Store, and the Android Keyboard (AOSP) in the open source project?
Update: I need the difference from a feature prospective

It's exactly the same keyboard as the Android Keyboard from Jelly Bean (4.2) as I read.
See i.e. this article.
Rereading exactly points out that this app should expose the keyboard which was only installed on Nexus phones with Android 4.2 to prior android version (4.0+) on other smartphones and tablets including features like "swiping" and gestures.
There is another article on Androidcentral

My AOSP keyboard let me long press some of the keys for punctuation.  I could hold "m" to get a "?" and now I no longer can on the Google Keyboard.

This is probably the CyanogenMod keyboard, which is titled Android Keyboard (AOSP) and has the symbols on every key.

As far as I understand The AOSP keyboard is available in CM Roms, its called 'stock' keyboard when you flash CM based ROMS. As for Google Keyboard, it's the official one on Nexus devices. I personally like the CM (AOSP) Keyboard. It allows me to long press keys for punctuations, I'm very used to long pressing 'm' for '?' and 'z' for '!'. It is irritating that I can't do that on the Official keyboard. I also can't find a separate APK for the CM (AOSP) Keyboard

There is EnhancedIME which is apparently the AOSP keyboard with some enhancements: https://forum.xda-developers.com/android/apps-games/enhancedime-aosp-latinime-enhancements-t3366639


text:
Can I recall a command to reset a lost phone?
Last night I lost my Nexus 7 coming back from a friend's house. Since it has a lot of confidential work email on one account I logged into the Android Device Manager and - when it didn't show up - set it to be reset as soon as it went online.
This morning the friend rang to say she had found the bag with the tablet in it. I had never even got it into the bike pannier I assumed it had fallen out of.
It is a wifi only model, so it still isn't connected to the net.
My question is, is there any way to recall the remote wipe command so that I dont have to reinstall everything once the wifi has turned on?

I'd make sure to take a good backup over USB, before turning wifi back on.

Right. This is possible, which is great. Log into the Android device manage for a second time, before connecting the lost device: set a password, click on the "wipe device" option, but then press cancel instead of choosing to wipe it. the earlier request is then cancelled and your recovered tablet can safely connect to the net. The new password will appear, apparently magically.

Can anyone confirm this?

I can only say that it worked for me. But remember it depended on the fact that I was able to recall the command before the tablet reconnected to the net. If it's connected to the net when you issue the command, I imagine that what's wiped is wiped. I am not going to test that theory.

Didn't work for me. There's no cancel button. What do you mean by "set a password".

I meant to set a password for the device through android device manager

I can confirm this works. I have Nexus 5, lost while travelling, found again. Important steps: in the android device manager on another device/machine 1. RESET PASSWORD, 2. "wipe device then cancel".

I can confirm it. I used Android Device Manager to issue an "erase" command to my Nexus 10 tablet that I had thought stolen. The next day I recovered the tablet from a place where there was no open wi-fi and it had been unable to connect. ADM's popup window states that if a device is offline it will be reset the next time it goes online.
I turned off the device's wi-fi to make sure it stayed offline and used my desktop to load ADM. The "erase" option was still available for the device because my device had been offline continuously. I again selected "erase" from the initial ADM screen but this time selected "cancel" from the subsequent pop-up window instead of confirming the erase. I repeated this process again for good measure.
With some trepidation, but out of options, I turned on the tablet's wi-fi, allowing it to connect. Android asked me to sign in and go through my two-step verification process. I did, and my Nexus 10 came alive and operated normally, having not been reset and with all programs and data intact.
Hopefully this will work for others. Like the previous poster, my success was certainly due to my device remaining offline and being unable to receive the initial "erase" command then going online only after apparently cancelling the erase with the process above.

My solution was to remove the SIM card, turn off my WiFi network, turn on the device, and unset Google Find my Phone as Administrator. After that, Google is unable to perform a Factory Data Reset.

This method worked for me, too.  I did remove the storage card, the SIM, and turn off my WiFi access point first, though, just in case.  After I powered it on, I backed up everything I could think of.  When I turned on the WiFi, it did not receive a wipe command.  I activated it with a new SIM (I had already replaced the phone), and all was well.


text:
Is the Nexus One battery charged when connected to a PC via USB?
Do you happen to know whether the Nexus One's battery is charged while being connected via the USB cable to a PC?
If so, is this standard behavior for all Android devices that have a USB port?

I don't know about the N1 in particular, but as far as I know, most (if not all) phones charge via USB so long as the USB port provides enough power.  My Motorola Droid and G1 charge via USB. My Nook Color and Motorola Xoom (tablets) do not charge via USB.
However, do note that it is faster to charge with the phone plugged in to a power source instead of a USB port.

Your last point is completely dependent on the USB port and the charger?  Standard powered USB ports put out 500 to 900 mA at 5V and microUSB AC wall chargers (at least the one's I've seen in the US) usually range between 500 to 1000 mA.  Your statement is probably true in most cases but if you have a 900 mA USB hub on your computer and a 500 mA wall charger the USB port is going to give a faster charge.

@Matt You're completely right, it does depend on the current. I generalized since that usually seems to be the case.

@Matt: The USB standard says 500mA is the max current a device can expect from a USB port.  Yes, some ports these days are capable of delivering more, but they are not required to.

There may be ports that provide more than standard current, but I haven't encountered this because most USB charging devices will charge at 500ma or lower unless plugged into something they determine to not be a data port (usually because the data pins are shorted).

Yes, though it will charge slower than if plugged in to the mains supply and some USB ports are powered better than others.

Yes, I own an N1 and this is often how I charge it. I've owned and worked with other Android devices, and all of them will charge from a powered USB port (although slower than from an electrical outlet).

Yes, but in my case, I had an usb hub installed with 7 ports ( which can be put on top of my desk - making it easier to plug in usb devices ). This hub could funtion with or without an electric adaptor (not sure how to call the plug which goes into the electricity outlet).
Using this usb hub with a memory stick was fine, but when I wanted to plug in my Android device (or for that matter my ipod), I had to make sure the external power adapter for this usb was connected to the outlet.
Got some weird things if the hub did not receive enough power. I'm sure some of the guys here at the forum can explain why  :)

Because without plugging in the external power adapter, the hub relied on the host PC's USB port for power. That port provides a max of 500ma. That 500ma of power must power the hub as well as being shared among the devices attached. That's fine for thumbdrives, but when the phone requests charging power -- Not enough juice available. The external power adapter allows the hub to supply 500ma on each port.


text:
Stream from my Android over Wifi to my amp
I have an HTC One and I would like to stream music over wifi via any player app (PowerAmp, Google Play, etc..) to a stereo amp.
I looked into Nexus Q, Sonos and more. Which one will actually support any player app in my device, letting me stream the music smoothly straight forward to my amp?

I am looking for the same solution and the only thing I have come up with is the Sonus Connect.  It sells for around $300.  Have not tried it yet, but seems to fit what you are looking for.  Basically you would transmit audio from your phone to the sonus connect.  The sonus connect would be wired to the amp and the amp to the speakers.


text:
Are there any problems caused by setting up my phone before the SIM card arrives?
Bought a brand-new Samsung S4 mini and ordered a new SIM card which is due to arrive in a week. So far I've inserted the battery and charged it.
Should I turn it on, even without a SIM-card in it, or would all the settings go awry? For instance, I heard that WhatsApp needs some sort of SIM card (phone number) verification. Will Android keep nagging me about my email address and SIM card etc right from the start until I "give in"?
In short, I can wait till the SIM-card arrives. The question is: Is it better to wait (and if so, why)?

There is nothing wrong in turning on the phone and using it.
Put the phone in Airplane mode and start using Wi-Fi and install applications etc.
As for the nagging part, No, Google will not be nagging you to register your device or SIM till you choose to (if you have skipped registering the device in the first screen). Google never registers your SIM, it registers your IMEI/EMSI with your account. So even without SIM you can use Google account.
However, without registering the device with Google, you will not be able to enjoy any of the Google play services. Other services (accounts) can be used without any problem.
Whatsapp registers your mobile number (not SIM), if you are retaining the number you can activate Whatsapp in this phone (S4 Mini) by receiving message in another phone and entering the code in S4 Mini (the application has to be removed from that old phone since Whatsapp can run only on one phone at a time).
Also, Whatsapp can be changed from device to device without any issues, just have to re-register it when changing devices for the same number.
In short, just turn on the device and use like normal phone (except for calling). Nothing to be worried about.

If you want to make yourself familiar with the device while waiting for the SIM to arrive, you might considering to turn on the device, skip the Google registration, and switch to airplane mode. Then you can start looking around how things are arranged, what apps came pre-installed, etc. As you didn't configure the Google account right now, installing apps should be out of question at this point (and you also should leave it aside here).
Once your SIM arrives, and before inserting it, consider going to Settings→Backup and Reset, and do a factory-reset; this will return your device to the state before you switched it on for the first time. Then turn off the device, insert the SIM, switch it back on again.
This time configure your Google account. Doing this for the first time on the (factory-reset) device, this will also trigger syncing your data (contacts, calendar, etc.) and, if you decided so, restore your Google Cloud Backup (if you had this configured on your old device as well). So from the view of your Google Account (and related apps/data), this is as if you just switched on the device for the first time. Now you can also go ahead installing and configuring all the apps you need.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not familiar with Whatsapp SIM verification; I don't use it.
You can use your phone even if it doesn't have a SIM card. Google's services doesn't need a SIM card. As long as you have a Google account and Wi-Fi - you'd at least need Wi-Fi to use / log-in your Google account with your phone - you're good to go.
However, like you mentioned, it's possible that apps that require SMS verification won't work. So maybe you can install them at a later time.

There's no harm in turning on your device and signing into your Google acct without a sim.  It's no different than buying a wifi only tablet and signing in with your Google acct.  The only apps you may not be able to use are those that require your device to have a phone number active on it.  Whatsapp may fall into this category, although I don't use it so I'm not sure.  You can go ahead and set your phone up however you want before the sim ever arrives, install all your apps, etc with no problem.  The only challenge you may have on some devices is skipping the sim activation screen.  Usually a quick google search will tell you how to do this so you can access the device.


text:
Phone is being overrun with ads
Whenever I switch on my Internet every morning I get a page which opens up with applications and games that aren't from the Play Store and I see a message that says my phone has stopped outside applications from being downloaded. Plus my gallery gets flooded with pictures of game icons and stuff and no matter how many times I delete them, they come back again. How do I make this stop?

You have installed something a bit dodgy by the sounds of it. Try AVG or AVAST security (both are free on play store) and see if they find the app then uninstall it. You could factory reset if it gets very bad, but lets not do that first!

I would never recommend an anti-virus Android app. They are bloating and unnecessary.

You have downloaded an app using an advertising platform that uses these ads.
These ads are actually against Google Play's Developer Policies, so when you find the app (see below) that is doing this, be sure to report it.
There are a few ways to find the app:

When did the adverts start? If you can remember this, try and think of any apps you might have installed not long before they started, and uninstall them.
Are there any apps in your Manage Apps area that shouldn't be there? Uninstall them, and see if the adverts go away.
Check through all your apps, and look at the permissions. Adverts like these will need loads of permissions, so if you see an app with many permissions which it may not need, uninstall it and see if the adverts go.

If the worst comes to the worst, you can factory reset and reinstall all your apps one by one, however this is a last resort, as you will lose all of your data.


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Is there any way to use a touch screen monitor to CONTROL an Android tablet through USB?
I have a Coby MID7065 Android tablet that I want to connect to a 4 wire capacitive touch screen monitor via USB. I want to be able to control my tablet via the touch screen monitor. I need to know if there is a way to do this, or if drivers that must be written for the Android OS to make this work or where I can get this information.

Do you have a link / picture of "4 wire capacitive touch screen monitor via USB", with the device and wires? I can't imagine what that looks like. Interesting problem / question though.

No i don't. A 4 wire capacitive touch screen is a type of touch screen. There is also a 4 wire resistance touch, projection capacitive, and infrared as well. The last two people are most familiar with because tablets and smart phones use these technologies for their touch screens which also allows for multi touch applications.

As far as I know, no Android devices ship with drivers for a USB touchscreen monitor. To make this work, you'd have to find or write drivers for Android, and they'd probably be specific to the type of monitor.
In the first instance you could approach the monitor manufacturer and see if they know of a driver for Android, or are willing to give you the datasheets you'd need to write one.

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