text:
press and hold home button to see all running apps in teamviewer quick support
I use teamviewer quick support  to control my mom's android from my mac.
It works ok. But still can't figure out how to press and hold home button to see all running apps in android using my mac's trackpad or keyboard.
I tried to move mouse over home button and press left mouse long and tried right mouse key but there is no result.

Alternatively you can install an app that emulate it. For example application home button . After installation long press to show the recent apps. Application *floating toucher * has an option named recent app


text:
Should I charge phone overnight or let battery down to a minimum?
For many times I found myself in a situation, that my battery charge was about 25-30% when I was going to sleep. Since I was always told to not let battery down below 20% (correct me, if that's wrong) I was faced with two options in this situation:

plug phone to charger and let it charge for entire night,
leave it and let it down to about 10-15%, that is below wrong level for battery charge.

I was always wondering, what option is best for my battery's life and phone's overall performance.
Can someone provide information, which option is better in mentioned situation?

I'm always charging if it's possible. So when I'm leaving home or workplace, all devices are at 100%.

Never let it run down below 10% if you can help it. Running down to "absolute zero" harms your battery (and might even render it inoperable – which is why most devices shut-down before reaching that point). Modern LiIo batteries don't suffer from "memory effect", so ideally you'd plug-in a charger whenever possible: "trickle-charging" doesn't hurt them, low charge (less than 5% definitely) shortens their life-span.
For details, please check with...

our battery-life tag-wiki
What can I do to increase battery life on my Android device?
Does constant charging harm my Android cellphone?
Wikipedia: Lithium Ion batteries
our battery tag-wiki
When should I start charging my Lithium battery?
How frequently is it okay to let the battery discharge fully or as low as possible?

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Why are Google Maps 9.5.1 running slow/freezing?
My Google Maps tend to freeze whenever I interact with them. Sometimes I can move around the map and it loads fine, but as soon as I do something else, like picking a location, like a restaurant or a bookmarked position, it freezes, which ends in either app completely crashing, or it unfreezing after ~15 seconds. Sometimes it even crashes the SystemUI. Even when I exit the app, the whole system runs slow and laggy until I remove it from recents.
I believe that the issue is not related to phone performance, as I've ran games like GTA III and Need For Speed Most Wanted on it smoothly (It's an Xperia T). I'm using CM12. I've tried deleting the data and cache, but that didn't help. The version of the Maps is 9.4.1.

CM12 is Android 5.0.2, it's rooted, I didn't disable my google services, my synochronization options are all enabled on my google account, I don't use Maps very often (why does this even matter), my Internet connection is about 5Mbit/s.

@Why_SE_bulling_new_users I'm not using offline maps, and since I wiped the app recently, it's not big.

I just reinstalled whole system (and switched to F2FS), and now the maps (as well as the whole system) work faster, which means I have solved my problem.

The Google Maps App is dependent on the Google Play Services app. Whenever you point out a location or a route, or even load a particular area of the map regularly, it records your actions so as to provide a better prediction the next time you access that particular app.
Those recorded actions are linked to your Google Account through the Google Play Services app, which runs in the background. This might overburden the RAM, and to free more space for it, the system terminates other activities which might be linked to the SystemUI. When they terminate, the SystemUI crashes.
When you deleted the data and the cache, it just made the app rebuild its data. The records would be with the Google Play services, which would be relinked with the app again.
When you wiped the data, all previous records would be erased even in Google Play services, so there would be much less data for the app to read while it loads. Hence the speeding up after a data wipe.

It seemed to be a problem related to system performance, after all. Looks like they system used too much RAM, leading to having slow Maps. After wiping the device, Maps work as expected.

Same happened with me ... Here is what I did -
Open installed apps from settings
Select maps
Clear all data and cache
Uninstall updates
.
.
.
NOW WORKING WELL.
this is a bug in an update .

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

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


text:
Compiling and running java applications from android terminal?
I recently got a bluetooth keyboard for my Motorola Xoom tablet, and upon realizing that BusyBox comes with vi for text editing I started wondering about writing and executing code on android.
I tried running $ javac in Terminal Emulator but to no avail; I got javac: not found
I looked around a bit and found a post saying that since android is run on Dalvik there is no way for the JVM to run, but it seems counter-intuitive that an operating system built on java wouldn't be able to compile and run a java program.
I managed to find an app called AIDE that allows one to write and execute android apps (in java), but that's still not quite what I'm looking for.
I want to be able to compile and run a standard java command line application on android.
Does anybody know a way of doing this?

I found an app on the play store that let me answer this question. Below are the steps I used to get javac and java running.
Install Terminal IDE
Go to the play store and install Terminal IDE, this supports everything needed to write and run java applications: vim, javac, and java.
Once the app is installed, make sure you open the app and go to Install System to install everything needed.
Compile and Run Program
Now press the Terminal IDE button to open the terminal.
Use vim to write and save your hello world program.
Then to execute it has to be compiled to a JAR file:
# javac hello.java
# dx --dex --output=hello.jar hello.class
# java -jar hello.jar hello

Pitfalls
When I first tried to compile and execute I got
UNEXPECTED TOP-LEVEL EXCEPTION:
java.lang.RuntimeException: hello.class: file not readable

This issue was fixed by compiling and running as superuser. Here's the full terminal output of my issue
terminal++@192.168.1.30:~$ javac hello.java
terminal++@192.168.1.30:~$ dx --dex --output=hello.jar hello.class

UNEXPECTED TOP-LEVEL EXCEPTION:
java.lang.RuntimeException: hello.class: file not readable
        at com.android.dx.util.FileUtils.readFile(FileUtils.java:63)
        at com.android.dx.cf.direct.ClassPathOpener.processOne(ClassPathOpener.java:139)
        at com.android.dx.cf.direct.ClassPathOpener.process(ClassPathOpener.java:113)
        at com.android.dx.command.dexer.Main.processOne(Main.java:247)
        at com.android.dx.command.dexer.Main.processAllFiles(Main.java:183)
        at com.android.dx.command.dexer.Main.run(Main.java:139)
        at com.android.dx.command.dexer.Main.main(Main.java:120)
        at com.android.dx.command.Main.main(Main.java:89)
        at com.spartacusrex.spartacuside.external.dx.main(dx.java:14)
        at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)
1 error; aborting
terminal++@192.168.1.30:~$ su
# dx --dex --output=hello.jar hello.class
# java -jar hello.jar hello
Hello world
#

More Information
Everything you could possibly want to know can be found in the Help section of the Terminal IDE app, especially in the Java sections of the Tutorial.

Well, what do you mean by a regular Java program? I don't think that anything beyond the basic namespaces and libraries are supported and supported on android. So even if you were to find javac, it's unlikely that you'd be able to "full" Java programs on an android device.


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System Files Edit Without Root?
can I change system files on my android without them being rooted. And does changing the files mean my phone is now rooted ?

No, you don't have permission to access it. 2) No, changing them is not the same as rooting at all.

@AndrewT. I guess that depends on how you interpret the question. :) Yeah, changing system files is not the same as rooting, but as Izzy pointed out, modifying system files (directly) does mean the phone is rooted, because if it weren't, you wouldn't be able to monkey around with system files.

Most system files are protected in different ways.
"system files" viewed as "managed by the Android system"

everybody can read them, but only root1 can modify ("read-only" for all non-root)
only root1 has access to them at all ("invisible" for all non-root)

So no: without rooting the device, you cannot modify them directly. Nevertheless, some of them can be modified indirectly, using the appropriate "activities" implemented in the Android GUI – which you might know as "Settings screens".
"system files" viewed as "located on the /system partition"
Here the entire file-system is mounted read-only – and only root can make it writeable.

The second part of your question is answered implicitly: root being a requirement to edit those files would implicate your device is rooted when you're able to modify them. But before drawing wrong conclusions, you should be sure the file you've modified really is a "system file". To find out whether your device is rooted, there are better means: "root checker".

1: sometimes there are dedicated system processes with elevated privileges, able to "trigger a modification" – this is how those GUI elements (in Settings) work.

Always glad to help, @Ekene! When it solved your problem, please mark the answer "accepted" (by clicking the check-mark next to it) – so it gets visible as "solved" in search results etc.


text:
Lost pin, no Google account, can I factory reset?
My friend's daughter can't remember her screen lock PIN.
I googled and found found how to get to the factory reset menu.
BUT, it also says that after factory reset, the phone will ask for a Google account, and she does not have one
Is there any way to totally factory reset without a Google account?

Related, for others with this problem, see this question. Personally, I am am afraid to try it, and it is not a Samsung device anyway, but that might help someone.

I think you misunderstand what it is saying here... It is referring to FRP (Factory Reset Protection) which is a method of protecting the phone from unauthorized access by third parties when it is factory reset by requiring you to log in to the Google account that was setup on the device prior to the factory reset.
Three outcomes are possible here...

There was no Google account setup on the device, a factory reset will clear all data and the phone will startup to the Setup Wizard like normal. FRP will not be a part of this situation. If there was no Google account on the device then you would not have been able to access the Play Store either, if your friend's daughter was able to access the Play Store then she had a Google account on the device.
There was a Google account setup on the device that is not known now and there is no way to recover it. If you factory reset at this time, the FRP will kick in on the first boot as part of the Setup Wizard and you will be required to enter the email address and password of the Google account that is not know. FRP will prevent any access to the device. In 99% of cases there is no way around this situation and the device will be permanently unusable.
There is a Google account setup on the device that is known. If you factory reset at this time, the FRP will kick in on first boot and you will enter the Google email address and password and FRP will be completed and turned off. The Setup Wizard will complete normally.

Unfortunately, we see more and more of #2 recently, and the device is basically a brick after a factory reset. A few specific models have a bypass for FRP, but those a few and far between and often require ADB and/or fastboot access to the device.
If this is an older device, prior to Lollipop (meaning Android 4.4 or older), then FRP is not an issue anyway since it is not incorporated into ROMs that old. Lollipop or higher is required for Google FRP.
Also, this is nothing new, in fact Google has been a bit behind in this are for a while... Apple's iOS and Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating systems have been doing this for some time now.

Thanks for clarifying.  That was good, clear, explanation. #2 is what I fear, although it is quite difficult asking a ten year old, as she will say black one minute and white the next - with no malice intended. I don't want to be responsible if the device is bricked, but will explain all of this to her mother. I have not yet asked in she accessed the Play Store - which is an excellent point.  I can't imagine a child not having loaded some games.  Of course, the problem then is getting her to remember the Google account.  I will ask today & get back to you. Thanks again (+1)


text:
Possible to transfer songs from iTunes (on Mac) to Android phone?
I have a significant music collection on my computer, which I am still frequently adding to. While the songs I've downloaded in the last several years are all DRM free (either downloaded for free or on iTunes post-DRM), I have many songs from the iTunes-DRM era. I use an iPhone as my phone almost exclusively for this reason (to use DRM-laced songs). Recently I have become disillusioned with iPhones and am considering switching to one of the new Google Pixel phones. However, my biggest hangup is still being able to store all my music on my device.
Now that Apple Music is available for iPhone, I was thinking it might be possible to access all my music on an Android phone--but I can't figure out conclusively if this will work. I have checked this official Apple page:

From your own collection
To add music that you imported from CDs, or bought from the iTunes Store or other sources, use iTunes on a Mac or PC. Make sure that you have the latest version of iTunes.

Open iTunes.
Sign in to the iTunes Store with the same Apple ID that you use on your Android phone for Apple Music.
Turn on iCloud Music Library and wait for iTunes to finish updating your library.

Any music that you add to iTunes after you turn on iCloud Music Library will be available in Apple Music on your Android phone.

However, I would like to avoid having to upload all my music to the iCloud Music Library (don't want to have to deal with that when I really just want to offload music straight from my computer to my device using a USB cord).
Can I transfer songs from my computer (Mac) to an Android phone that has Apple Music (or maybe some other software?) using a wired connection, without having to upload everything to iCloud? If so, will this work even for iTunes-DRM-laced songs?
If iCloud is the only option, I will probably cave and do this, but only if it will work with all my songs (from iTunes-DRM, iTunes-non-DRM, non-iTunes), and if I don't have to pay to store my songs on iCloud (again, I don't need to be able to access them from anywhere, just my computer and a single Android phone).
Similar questions have been asked before, but are all out of date (3-6 years old).:

Android and iTunes
Can I play DRM music from iTunes on my Android?
How do I get this iTunes song on an Android device?

I found from this answer on Ask Different that there is this software that can emulate writable CD. That's very neat if going the burn and reimport route. I just tried it myself, it works. :) I've added it to the answer.

@Fiksdal That's an awesome solution. Thank you for adding that.

Of course, it's trivial to transfer the non-DRM music. There are lots of apps on Google Play that effectively sync iTunes with Android in an iTunes-iOS way. Personally, I really like iSyncr used together with Rocket Player. It can also be done manually via Android File Transfer. The problem, however, comes with the DRM music.
I've been in exactly the same situation as you. I made the move from iOS to Android, and had a bunch of old iTunes DRM music in my iTunes library that I wanted to sync to my Android devices.
There is absolutely no way to playback the iTunes DRM files on Android
I've tried this personally, and I can confirm that at the time of writing (October 2016) there is absolutely no way to do it. iTunes DRM music will only play on Apple software. The Apple Music Android app might stream your uploaded music, but only if you're a paid subscriber. Apple Music doesn't let you do anything unless you get a paid plan. That's the first thing the app asks you to do when you open it, and there's really no other functionality to the app unless you do that. And even if you were a paid subscriber, I'm not sure what sort of offline or internal storage functionality the app would give you. It's really a streaming app.
You need DRM-free files
Please note: These methods all have annoying flaws about them. I'm sorry, but I'm really not aware of any better ways. I have searched quite thoroughly.
Option1 : Burn to a virtual CD and reimport
This is probably the easiest and most reliable way to do it. (Unless you have dozens of albums, in which case, yes, it's a lot of manual work.) Emulate a burnable CD. Use iTunes to burn the songs do the virtual disk. The software will burn it very fast since it's virtual. It will instantly be mounted as a virtual CD on your macOS. You can then import the songs to iTunes again, DRM-free. This is also very fast. I used Apple Lossless format while reimporting, because I have OCD about not losing quality. I have tried this on Yosemite and it 100% works. Here's an alternative for Windows users (haven't tried it myself, though.) If, somehow, emulation doesn't work for you, then I guess you could use a rewriteable actual physical CD. That would be much slower, though.
Option 2: Delete and redownload from iTunes (may not always work.)
According to Apple, you can delete the DRM songs from your iTunes library and download them again from the iTunes store. This is supposed to give you non-DRM copies of the songs. However, I've found that this doesn't always work. I just tried it with one song that I bought 10 years ago, and the downloaded file was DRM. Also, it was 128 kbps even though I would have gotten twice that bitrate had I purchased the same song today. Thanks, Apple! Also, if trying this, make sure you have a backup of your songs before deleting them. Previously purchased items are not always available for redownload.
Option 3: Pay Apple to remove the DRM (ugh)
According to some of the answers to this question on Ask Different, you can pay Apple for some services to remove the DRM. I'm not sure if this works anymore, though. Also it just feels bad to have to pay again for music you've already bought and paid for.
Option 4: Remove DRM with (paid) app
There's another way that will (unfortunatley) cost you money too.

The app is called TunesKit, and can be purchased from here. I've tried the free trial version, and it worked fine. Unfortunately, the limitations with the free trial mean that you'll need the paid version for it to be of any real use.
In the past, there were free apps to do what that app does. I haven't been able to get any of those apps to work as of today. I haven't found any currently working free apps that remove iTunes DRM. If anyone knows of any, then please let me know.
Option 5: Download again from non-DRM source
One final option is to simply redownload your music from a non-DRM source and delete the old DRM music. For example, I had some music from General Fuzz, an artist who licenses his music under the Creative Commons license. I had already paid for his music through iTunes (as a way to support him), so I merely used BitTorrent to download his music again, legally. Of course, it's likely that the vast majority of your music is not licensed under such a license. However, you have already paid for the music. If your personal morals, the laws in your jurisdiction and your computer knowledge allows you to do this safely, then you may consider simply redownloading the music through BitTorrent. I personally wouldn't have any ethical objections to downloading music I'd already paid for in this fashion, but do consider the laws of your juridsiction.

You can sync your iTunes music files from your windows or mac through an app called AirSync by doubleTwist - available in Google Play store.

Warning: this answer has been proven not to work with DRM protected songs. This answer helps with that.
 Yay! You can!
You will need to consult here to be able to use android's MTP function on your Mac: android.com/filetransfer
Here is how:

Plug your Phone in via MTP, and open a window leading to it's music folder/ where you want the music to go.

Open another window and go [Your username] > iTunes > iTunes Music (also called iTunes Media)
(If it ain't there, check in iTunes where the music is saved, OR go into its advanced preferences and check if 'Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library' is checked.)

Copy and paste it to your device, like a boss.

Hope that helps! IF you are having trouble playing it, use VLC media player. Its very good when it comes to format support.

I don't have an android phone to test this out with right now, but will this still allow iTunes DRM songs to be played? I think they're still protected so can't be used with VLC.

@spacetyper No idea (Lol!) I have a Friend who gets back from holiday tomorrow - he uses Android with a Mac, so he may know.

By the way, since OP is on a Mac, he'll need this app to use MTP: https://www.android.com/filetransfer/


text:
Is there an official Chinese handwriting input method for Android?
I searched for some page about Chinese handwriting input, but on my Android 7.1, I only see Pinyin, and it shows the following:

On some page, such as https://eastasiastudent.net/china/mandarin/handwriting-practice-android/
I do see

with the bottom right panel suitable for handwriting input. So my Android 7.1 doesn't have it... and going to Settings, I only see the Google Pinyin input (Pinyin means "assemble sound" or phonetics).
But that page seems to suggests the handwriting panel can be obtained by Pinyin input.
Is there a way to have an official Chinese handwriting input method for Android?

That 2nd image doesn't look like an official input method either, since Google Input doesn't offer T9 layout. Just use 3rd-party ones.

I found it: it is an app in the Google Play store called Google Handwriting Input.
It doesn't say it has Chinese Handwriting Input there right now but it in fact does.

I'm Chinese. and I use iFly(xun fei, also讯飞) input method, may be the best input method for inputting Chinese(whatever handwriting or voice inputting or using the keyboard).


text:
How to troubleshoot this condition of recurrent restarts?
State of my OnePlus2 phone after Tech2 support session, troubleshooted in the thread How to login to resetted phone when verified password not accepted?
I am thinking what to do before my second tech 2 support session is taking place.
The tech support did not manage to resolve the original case completely because time ended of the session.

Phone starts. Welcome screen. It does not accept all inputs (something wrong in the system). Sometimes, it restarts itself during the welcome session and goes back to welcome. If it goes to the desktop view, it restarts itself in few minutes, and goes back to welcome.

I think this condition can be only for OO support but not sure.
Maybe, there is something which could be done, because now, access to the phone frontend.
Phone: OnePlus 2
OS: 3.1 OO, Android 6

In the recovery mode, cleaned all memory. Reinstalled bootloader. No effect on the phenomenon. Finally, money back from warranty because most likely a software issue in OO itself. Two sessions with OO Tech support.


text:
Downloading all my Dropbox files to my Android
On my Samsung tablet with Android, I installed a Dropbox app. It shows me all my files, but when I try to open a file for the first time, it has to connect to the Internet to download it.
Since usually I don't have an internet connection, I would like to download all files at once, so that they will be available locally. How can I do this?

How many files do you need to save?

Search for file synchronization apps like FolderSync Lite (Google play)

dropsync works great for a single folder, thanks


text:
Why is the app name under /data/app different from that under /data/data?
After I installed DiskInfo.apk through adb install DiskInfo.apk, under /data/app, there is an installed apk named:
me.kuder.diskinfo.pro-1.apk
However, under /data/data, there is a new directory named:
me.kuder.diskinfo.pro
Why is the apk name under /data/app appended with "-1"?
And why is the name under /data/app different from that under /data/data?

I would guess it's due to Android supporting multi users, and that the number indicates the user ID (aka "1" for owner), but I don't have proof, and haven't researched about it. Other than that, the name is the same though.

@AndrewT. +1. But why is the folder under /data/data not appended the "-1"?

Yes sounds good what Andrew is writing. I could also guess that this -1 is related to the installed version of this apk. Maybe if you install a newer version when this version is still installed it's number will increase. The folder in /data/data is always named after the package chosen for this apk, read from its AndroidManifest.xml file so it does not contain this -1 thingy.

The .apk file can be named whatever you want. It doesn't have to be named even anything related to the application ID.
In this case, what happened is that, when the file was downloaded, there was probably already a me.kuder.diskinfo.pro.apk in the download directory (or perhaps a temp directory), so the OS added "-1" to the filename. The contents, however, weren't changed, so the app still registers itself without the "-1".


text:
What is heimdall PIT file?
What is PIT file that is generated by heimdall? Is the PIT format a general format which is used by other software as well? or is a format dedicated to Heimdall?
If it is general format that could be used by other software, there should be manual or standard description of it, is there any such description?

Heimdall is a open source tool, used to flash firmwares for Samsung devices. Heimdall works some kind of different from Odin.Heimdall flashes individual files where as Odin flashes a package files. PIT file in Heimdall is used to tell your device how to boot.
It is general format and are considered one of the original formats for Macintosh file for compression. (.PIT) are MAC OS files. To open file this on Windows OS use 'Smith Micro StuffIt Deluxe 2010'.

I thought the PIT file was the Partition Information Table? Relating to the phone's partitions. I could WELL be wrong, but I've seen similar mentioned. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=771426

Yea It is related to phone's partition!!

This answer is totally incorrect. Odin has PIT options too.


text:
How to use an external sd card and recharge the battery at the same time
I'm an happy owner of the tablet nexus 10. It is very good. Some time ago I've bought the leef connector because I want to use an external sd card :

as you can see from the picture,there is a problem. When I keep attached the leef connector I can't recharge the battery. Do you know if there is some way to do both things at the same time ? I want to use the external sd card but when the battery is going to be very low I want to attach the tablet to one USB port or to the wall outlet. Thanks.


text:
MP3 player, that remembers current possition in all playlists or folders
Is there any MP3 player out there, that would remember current file and position in that file, not only for currently played playlist / folder, but also in all playlists / folders, that are added to it?
I know, that remembering file and position in an active playlist, which is essential for listening to audiobooks, is offered by many MP3 players available for Android. But, that's not enough for me.
I'm looking for a player that will:

support multiple playlists at once (with optional easy switch between them),
remember file and position for all playlists and restore / rest it on each switch.

I tried system player, Winamp and Simple Music Player. All of them lack second option. Once user switches to a new playlist, player begins to play it from the very first file and from its beginning.
I need this feature, because I'm listening to more than one audiobook simultaneously.
I know, that software recommendations are not much welcome to this site (or to any in SE network). But, I'm asking about very specific feature of an MP3 player. So, I treat this question not like recommend me a software, but rather as tell me, if there is anyone out there, that has this feature, or should I code it myself?

Yes, there is.
MortPlayer Audio Books and Smart AudioBook Player have both been verified by me to have asked feature implemented.
Some details:

MortPlayer Audio Books is completely free (it displays ads, but these can be... disabled in settings), but offers an enormous number of options, settings and preferences, which can overwhelm many of fresh users; it is also based on skins, with many skins having... well... not to good UI, look & feel,
Smart AudioBook Player is much simplier and offers more clean, standard UI, but it is not free. It comes with 30-days trial offering all options, after which it must be purchased for $2 or will block most extra options and features.

Both players have the most desired option. You can jump between folders or around media library and every time you open up a folder (book), that was opened by you before, you will always start listening from the position, you left it, not from the beginning.
There are probably many more audio players for Android, that supports these feature. Only, to find them,  one must search for audiobook player, not for MP3 player, as I did previously.

Free ones:
MortPlayer ( I use this )
Poweramp player
DoubleTwist
Smart Audiobook Player 2
NRG Player

Your list is longer than mine, but to have your answer accepted you must extend it with a similar programs descriptions as I did. Say something about pros, cons etc.

Please note that Poweramp is not a free app. You must pay US$3.99 after the 14-day trial expires.


text:
Can I turn off all "Notification" of all apps, services in Android phone?
I found tips to improve battery in this link: http://www.gottabemobile.com/2012/10/30/hurricane-sandy-crisis-map-puts-shelters-storm-info-alerts-power-outages-on-mobile/
In this link - author said we can turn off Notification of android/iOS applications to save battery.
I have an Android phone. If I go to Settings/ Personalization / Manage Notifications (Sony Xperia). I will see all Applications/ Android Services that I can turn off notifications
My questions is CAN I turn off all application notifications (downloaded / built-in apps) / android service notifications (app services/built-in services)? If I turn off all of them - Does this affect operation of the phone? I understand that I will not receive any notifications (news/updates ... ) if I turn off notifications. I can check updates manually.
Thank you!

Depending on the Android version running on the device, that might be possible. Taking a raw (and optimistic) guess, this might gain you 2 minutes more battery endurance (if at all). Do you really think that's worth it? There are much better things you can do to increase battery-life, many of them linked from our battery-life tag-wiki.

Yes, you can turn off all notifications.  Your phone will work fine, but you will not receive any notifications, which will severely limit functionality of applications that depend on notifications to alert you of events and progress.
Furthermore, the amount of battery life saved by doing this will be so close to zero, that I honestly can't recommend it.
Disable notifications for annoying apps.  Leave them on for others.

@LocHa You're welcome!  If you found it helpful, you can click the up arrow to apply an upvote!  :-)


text:
Phone will no longer connect via USB after bad ROM
I have a phone that was flashed with a bad ROM. It no longer has a system, so actually getting into the phone is a no-go. It can, however, boot into recovery and download mode. I planned on flashing to a stock ROM, but I can no longer connect via USB: Windows simply cannot recognize the device.
I've gone through various driver installations, but to no avail. I figured I'd give up on the USB and just put a stock ROM on an SDcard and install it through recovery. Would this work, or do I need to do it through USB?

You can flash a ROM through recovery from the SD card, but you can't (usually, depends on the device) go back to full stock as the full stock image (usually) includes recovery etc. Should be no issue to flash a ROM at least, then worry about going back to stock from there.

@RossC Awesome, that's what I wanted to hear. So I'd flash the stock ROM, get USB working again, and then flash again to ensure that the phone as both a stock ROM and stock recovery.

@Izzy done now, Liffer nope, flash a custom ROM to get it booting, then worry about getting back to stock.

With these things there are always exceptions and a few clever work-arounds, the below is general advice.
Only flash a ROM for your exact device model
You can't flash something not 'stock' through the stock recovery, attempting to do so will cause signature errors. The opposite; flashing stock ROM through a custom recovery will also error. So you will not be able to restore to stock first (more than likely anyway.)
However, since you don't immediately need the phone on stock, then you can copy any ROM compatible with your device onto the SD card and flash that through recovery. At least then you will be have a booting device, and can deal with the USB drivers issue.
Installing in recovery would usually involve the 2 main steps below:
Wipe the device
Install from zip
And then install any other zips you may need (e.g. google-apps).
You could attempt to mount the SD card in your recovery but I'd guess you've tried all those options.
Also as Izzy has pointed out you may need a new radio-firmware flashed on the device to allow "low level interface" connection, so the kernel has nothing to connect to.
Once again ONLY flash something for your EXACT device or you will have a shiny paper weight!

I was able to install this custom ROM, but I still cannot connect via USB. Here is a screenshot of the device info. I think this issue is at the kernel level, as the phone simply cannot supply information to the computer. Perhaps you can point me to some compatible kernel?

You could try this one (at your own risk of course): http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2217686 Have you tried a different cable, USB port, computer etc first? Worth a try.

I gave it a try, but no go. I've tried a couple of different ROMS, but nothing is getting the computer to recognize the phone. I've tried Kies and various other drivers, as well as different USB port and cables. At this point, I don't think it's worth the frustration. I may consider selling it for parts, which would be a shame since it's in like-new condition. I'll take this as a lesson.

"flashed with a bad ROM" (from your question) might have included a bad radio-firmware – which would explain why it doesn't work with "any ROM tried": if the (wrong) radio doesn't supply the "low-level interface", there's nothing kernel or driver can plug in to. In this case, it might help finding a working (and up-to-date) radio image for your device, and flash that.

@Izzy great point, I've added a note to the and of the answer (crediting you).

Good idea, @RossC! You might wish to include the [tag:radio-firmware] (or the direct link to its tag-wiki, which might be preferable) for details on what that is and what to take care for. With the radio it's even more important to not flash any incompatible image: if that's broken, it might not be as easily re-flashed as a "normal ROM".


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How does reducing brightness of screen increase battery life?
For all I have heard, reducing the screen brightness of your phone can increase your battery life. Just about every expert in the field agrees to this statement. But today I came across this article which kind of raised quite a few questions in my mind. The excerpt from the article in question here is:

All these screen dimming/color cast applications function in
  essentially the same way: by overlaying a graphic on the screen to
  reduce the brightness and/or change the color cast of the screen.
  Think of it like adding a partially opaque layer to an image in
  Photoshop. When you tell the Lux application, for example, that you
  want the screen 50 percent dimmer than the actual hardware in the
  phone can provide via LED adjustments, the application essentially
  cheats by layering a gray mask over the screen that decreases the
  brightness because the screen elements are darker. Other apps like
  Screen Adjuster, Darker, Easy Eye, Twilight, and even the brightness
  adjustment function in popular battery-saving app JuiceDefender all
  work the same way.

So if the screen brightness applications (like Lux) only add a partially opaque layer they are essentially not dimming the backlight (correct me if I am wrong here) so in turn it would not have any affect in battery life. Right?
The article continues saying – Anything that layers something over the screen in anyway disables the “Install” button as the button is rendered unclickable in order to prevent malicious software from creating a false overlay that leads the user to think an application has a different set of permissions or that the application is an entirely different app altogether. So does reducing the screen brightness via Settings uses some other technique (probably it actually reduces the backlight)?

See Brightness and battery use to learn more about different screen types and how brightness affects power use.

I've played around with adjusting the screen brightness in app's that I've written and what I've found is that, in the newer phones, when you set the brightness to a low number (say 1%) there is still significant screen brightness whereas older phone looked black.  It seems like the backlighting on newer phones has a minimum brightness they need to maintain if they're on at all.  Maybe that's why the app's you mention are overlaying a graphic to dim the display, rather than turning down the backlighting.

I think you've got to differentiate between "software-layers" and "hardware-layers" in the first place. If you put a "display foil" on top of the screen, that will certainly not reduce battery consumption (though it "dims" your display). But if it's a software layer reducing brightness, that's something completely different: How should that be achieved other than reducing the "amount of light created"? It's not a "physical layer on top", though it kind-of works like that when it comes to LCDs.1
I have no means of proving it "physically", but here are two ways I can imagine2:

reducing light intensity of the "light generators" (LEDs for OLED, or backlight for LCD) by feeding less power to them – which would work for both types of displays, and is the way the actual brightness control works
altering the color values (e.g. convering "#FFFFFF" to "#DDDDDD", making "white" a "light gray") – primarily working for OLED to "safe power", but in theory also for displays using differently colored LEDs (or LED arrays) to compose the color, if such exist3

As Dan put it1: Using a filter/overlay like this will make either type of screen look darker, but it'll only reduce power use on OLED screens. On LCD screens, only decreasing the backlight brightness saves power.
Apart from that, your quotes nowhere state the filters would not affect power consumption in either way.

1 Following up a discussion in chat between Dan and me, on LCDs it in fact is similar; quoting Dan: Using a software overlay to darken pixels on an LCD screen won't reduce the power consumption [… which works] by putting a transparent grey full-screen window on top of other windows; that's more likely to increase overall power consumption, because you're giving the window compositor more work to do. Doesn't contradict whith what I wrote, but gives more insight in "applying the right filter to the wrong display type": The same amount of "backlight" is generated, just the crystals (LCD = Liquid Crystal Display) are darker.
2 There might be other possibilities which escaped me, so I don't claim the list to be complete. It should give some insight nevertheless.
3 There are differently colored LEDs at least for Red, Green, and Blue (read: RGB, so such a combination would cover the full color spectrum), making displays like this potentially possible (note I didn't say they already exist!); different colors feature different efficiency – so "red-ifying" the screen would safe power (red-orange LEDs feature the most lumen-per-Watt according to Wikipedia).

LCD screens don't generate light, and they use almost exactly the same amount of power whatever colour they show. Only the backlight brightness makes a difference on LCD screens.

Also, the different lumens-per-watt figures you get for different LED colours only applies to semiconductor LEDs. Things are quite different for OLEDs.

Even if that is true, that would not apply to all screens such as an (AM)OLED screen that doesn't use a backlight.
From Wikipedia article on amoled:

The amount of power the display consumes varies significantly depending on the colour and brightness shown. As an example, one commercial QVGA OLED display consumes 0.3 watts while showing white text on a black background, but more than 0.7 watts showing black text on a white background, while an LCD may consume only a constant 0.35 watts regardless of what is being shown on screen."

Also read the claims on the apps themselves, most don't even claim to effect battery life on other screens
from "Screen Filter" app:

Applies a shade that acts as a dimmer to ensure your eyes don't hurt. Far more powerful than Android's built-in brightness setting. Great for low-light gaming, web browsing, and eBook reading. It even saves battery life for AMOLED displays!

From "Night Mode" app:

If you have an AMOLED display, you can also save battery!

Is changing the brightness via settings differ from using app to lower the brightness ?. I am not using any app, but putting my phone in low brightness or disabling the auto mode have some effect on battery. My phone is Nexus 5 which is LCD

This is an old question, but aside from Dan Hulme's comments it doesn't really have a clear and correct answer.
To the questions in the OP: Yes to both, if you're using a backlit display.
There are two very different types of screens in phones: backlit and non-backlit.
LCD displays are backlit. The backlight brightness is the main factor in screen power consumption, and the image shown on screen doesn't matter. The phone's brightness setting controls the backlight.
OLED displays are non-backlit, as the OLEDs themselves emit light and don't need a separate backlight. An OLED's color output determines its power consumption. The phone's brightness setting is a multiplier for each OLED's brightness.
A screen dimming application puts a transparent black image on top of the user interface, which darkens the color of the display output. If there's a backlight, it won't be dimmed and the power consumption won't change. With an OLED display, the change in color reduces power consumption.


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Can I remove the "USB Configuration\KIES\UMS" splash-screen?
Everytime that I plug my Android smartphone on my USB PC port to recharge the batteries a splash-screen popup telling me to choose between "KIES and UMS-only configuration" and I need to chose "Cancel" to make the screen extinguish it light. There is some configuration to set one of these modes and cancel this choose process?
My smartphone is a Galaxy 551 with 2.2 Froyo Android.
Thank you.

On my Galaxy S, turning on USB debug mode in Settings -> Applications -> Development turns off this notification.

Hmmm i will take a try then post the results here. Thank you

Glad to help :)


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How can I set notifications for gmail on the new version of the gmail app (2.3.5.2)
I recently installed CM7.1 (stable version for SGS).  This has a new version of the gmail app (2.3.5.2).  Unlike previous versions, this has no control for notifications.  I like my mail to arrive silently, with nothing more than an icon in the notification bar.  Now, however, I have no visible option to turn off the notification for gmail.
Is there any way to disable notifications for the gmail app?

Actually, with 2.3.5.x version of Gmail app, Google added more notification options, although well hidden within the settings.  In the main screen of the Gmail app:

Press the Menu key, go to More -> Settings.
Tap on your Google account, scroll down to the Notification settings section and ensure the Email notifications option is enabled.
On the same screen, tap on the Labels to notify option.  Here "Inbox" and "Priority Inbox" are always listed, as well as any labels you've created on the Gmail's web interface.
For each label that you want to specify or change notification options, tap on the label, and in the pop-up window you will be able to select the following options:

Email notifications: whether or not to display the icon in the notification area when new e-mail comes in.
Ringtone: allows you to specify a custom ringtone, or set to "Silent" for none.
Vibrate: specifies options for when/if to also vibrate on new mail.
Notify once: when checked, will only display notifications (and sound/vibrate) once for new mail until you dismiss it, otherwise will notify for each new e-mail.

Tap OK button, exit out of the settings, and you should be all set.


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Forward MMS via EMail
I've send someone a pretty long MMS (just text) but he wasn't able to receive. Is there a way to retransmit via EMail. E.g. copy the whole text and paste it into an email instead?
Thanks.

I think so.
Find the message you sent in the "Messaging" app.
Long-press on it.
Choose "Copy message text".
Now run the mail app, compose an email, and in the body of the message, long-press, and choose "Paste" from the pop-up menu.

Problem is, that I don't have the option "Copy message text". Using stock android 2.3.3 from Samsung with Samsung Galaxy S I9000 as device.

Incomprehensibly, some stock SMS apps don't have this option. You might have to resort to temporarily installing a 3rd party SMS app like Go SMS Pro long enough to do what you need.


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How to Create Additional Google Play Account Under 1 Google Account?
I have just set up new Google Account on my tablet that uses new Google Play account. I want to add another Google Account that I use as main that already has history of apps I bought in the past and payment method associated with it.
So instead of using new Google Play account with no track record and bought apps, I want to remove it from existing Google Account and link to it established Google Play account.
How to do that without adding another Google Account to device only to have everything synced and mixed up? After all this is short term purpose because after adding apps I already bought, will mean removing that Google Account and switching back to previous. What if I want to download paid application again? Here we go again..

possible duplicate of How to change the account for Android Market?

Question there deals with 2 Google Accounts and my question is about 1 Google Account.

So you want to move your Google Play purchases/history from one account to another?

I don't know if you literally refer to this as you described, but my point is to replace Google Play account on Google Account with different established Google Play account that I has many apps I bought in past so I can use those on this tablet with new Google Account.

You have a very strange use case, and Dan Hulme's duplicate suggestion is actually correct.
If you want to use the apps from an OLD account, you need to add the OLD account, switch to the OLD account, and install the apps through the OLD account. Then, you switch back to the NEW account, and remove the OLD account. If you want to install a new app from the OLD account, you need to repeat the same procedure.
As I said, you have a very strange use case, and this is the only workaround. If what you wanted were possible, it would be open to abuse. You could share the account to several people, and let them install apps using that account.
EDIT #1: As per Izzy, removing the OLD account can break the installed apps, as the license checks will fail. So, best to keep both OLD and NEW accounts, but disable the sync on the OLD account (as you suggested).

You have to add that, as soon the "old account" is removed, paid apps associated with it might stop working – as the license check fails.

Good point @Izzy

GeffChang The only solution is to have 2 Google Accounts but disable every sync on old account so no data will be downloaded to table I want to share with mom. This allows me to choose old account in Google Play and use it while all else is synced to table from new Google Account.

@Izzy Thanks for pointing that out. I wondered too. Added your comment into the answer.

@geffchang note my conjunctive ("might"). Not all actually do. Check whether they request the vending.CHECK_LICENSE (Google Play license check) permission. If they do, they are likely to fail with the associated account being unavailable (maybe not instantly, but whenever they check next). If they don't, chances are good they keep running (but won't receive updates). I'm even using some of the latter category on my "without Google" devices (so no Google account available at all) for quite a while. Conclusion remains the same in most cases ;)


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Which Android version/phone can control per-app access permission?
The only reason I am still using an iPhone is due to the fact that most Android phones did not allow control of per-app access permission. The App Ops feature was once there but pulled.
I know some Chinese Android phones, such as XiaoMi and Huawei, provide the app permission feature. Is the feature available in mainstream Android phones, such as the Nexus, Samsung, LG, HTC ... for latest version of Android 4.4.2 or upcoming Android L?

Is it possible to install an app and exclude some of its requested permissions?

No, App Ops is not available on Android any more since Android v4.4.2 and probably won't be reintroduced with Android L but might be resurrected some time later. It was apparently dropped as some apps would stop functioning so the user experience would suffer.
Some optimal solutions:

Find a device that is supported by a Custom ROM like Cyanogenmod. This aftermarket firmware includes a feature called Privacy Guard that works similar to App Ops.
My preferred solution: Buy a phone that is rootable and use the 3rd party solution called Xprivacy. It is an Xposed module that has the most advanced permission control with a very dedicated developer. As long as your device is rooted you will be able to use that tool on any ROM > Android v4.0. Downside: Not easy to handle.
Use one of the other optional methods for permission management listed and compared by the Xprivacy developer here.


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How can I send a group sms using my google voice number?
I have tried using the google voice app only to find that it doesn't support group SMS, and instead sends an individual text message to each person (which doesn't allow them to reply-all to the group I originally messages).
I have also tried using hangouts, only to discover that it does NOT use the google voice number.
Is there any way to combine these two features? can I do it from a web-browser interface somehow?
P.S. I would like to avoid signing up for Google+ if I can avoid it.

Google Voice (the service) doesn't support this. Until Google adds this feature there's no way to do it.
This limitation is not specifically noted anywhere official, to my knowledge. However, Voice receives group messages from supported carriers the same way it sends them - as independent messages - and this has been officially stated. Mayur Kamat (the Hangouts product manager) noted this caveat on a Google+ announcement regarding expanded MMS support for Voice:

Group MMS will arrive as individual messages - so you will at least
  not miss messages any more.

The above also requires that the message was sent by one of the carriers Google supports MMS from. Group messages received from unsupported carriers are never delivered.

The big unsupported one currently is Verizon, for those interested.

Verizon is now supported, btw.

Is AT&T supported? Two of my friends have AT&T and I am on T-Mobile when they do group messages, I receive them separate in their own threads but it works with Sprint and T-Mobile.

Actually you can use GV send a copy of the sms to your email.  Once you have received GV's assigned email for this number you can now respond through your email and now you can respond through multiple user's or groups through the email to SMS system setup in GV.  Only caveat is that you have to get a response from your intended subject after you have setup SMS to email in GV to create this GV specific email to SMS email address.  I have not found a way to create these GV specific email address.  Hope this helps because I wanted to do the same and found this was the only fashion to get GV to do what I wanted.

Voice allows you to send up to 5 recepients at once if you separate the numbers by commas.  Replies to the text are 1 on 1 and not to the group.
https://support.google.com/voice/answer/117108

I am unsure if the base Google Hangouts app supports this, but try Hangouts Dialer.  I have both installed, so it's hard for me to tell if the base app incorporated the feature.
Setup
Inside the settings of the app, you will see an entry for "SMS".  You should also have an entry that lists your Google account email address.  If you don't have this portion, you can tap "add account" to make the association.  Once this is done, the Google Voice number should automatically become available.
Test
Create a new message and select your contact.  The app should prompt for "SMS message" and list entries for Mobile (which is your mobile phone number) and Google (which is your Google Voice number).


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Huawei Ascend G510 do I need to unlock bootloader and root to flash a custom ROM with CWM
My sister wants me to fix her phone, an Huawei Ascend G510-0100, which is having lots of issues in the stock ROM (she's not able to call, for instance). we tried an hard reset but in a few days the phone started bothering us again (this problem presented the first time a few weeks after purchase, but she did not say that cause she thought she introduced malware...).
We can't use our warranty since she lost the receipt and the service is 500 km from home.
So I deceded to try flashing  Android 4.4 . I flashed my own phone 3 times but I never unlocked the bootloader (Samsung Next Turbo) and root was not needed (in two of them).
Do I need to unlock bootloader and root to flash a custom ROM in this device? I wanted to use the ClockWorkMod to flash, but I can't find an updated version for G510, can anybody link me one?
If yes, where is the dload folder in internal storage?

Root wasn't needed,but I first tried to uninstall system apps to make the system faster, but there wasn't a really huge difference.
I had to unlock the bootloader to flash recovery (TWRP), and now I have a custom ROM on (AOSPA 4.6).


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How can I avoid applications from sucking my battery and bypassing my lock-screen?
I have now confirmed my suspicious... I will give you the example that just happened and motivated me to open this topic:
I was at my computer, with my phone in my desk. Suddenly new Viber messages arrive. With that, the phone vibrates and turns the screen ON. Worse than that, when I look at it I see that my lock-screen as been bypassed by Viber, which is now showing up on the screen the chat window where I received new messages.
Moreover, I left the phone untouched for 5 minutes, the screen stayed ON all that time...! This is unacceptable! So with this I detected two problems:

The lock-screen goes off with notifications. If I had the phone in my pocket I would be accidentally calling Barack Obama by now.
The screen stays ON forever. Which is not a problem, in 100 years from now. But in the 21st century, having the smartphone screen ON for hours is a huge issue!

My Android is 4.4.2 and my phone is a GT-I9301I (Samsung).
How can I stop apps from doing this?
Thanks!

And, should I consider that you have checked display settings as well for screen timeout?

I would be accidentally calling Barack Obama by now. -- proper use of proximity sensors (by developer) avoids this issue. Oneplus One devices had such issues with CM 11S at earlier stages. Updates fixed it.

the screen timeout is 1 min.

The issue here appears to be Viber.  Reading the permissions on the app, it has the ability to:

disable your screen lock
prevent device from sleeping
modify system settings
close other apps
draw over other apps

First step, remove Viber.
If you absolutely must continue using Viber, check the app to see if any of these options are able to be turned off in the settings of the app.  If you can't find any settings that fix your issues, there are some more complicated options.
BEWARE THAT THINGS BEYOND THIS POINT CAN BREAK APP FUNCTIONALITY AND POSSIBLY BRICK YOUR DEVICE!
Something like an AppOpps launcher should let you get into the app permissions menu. Some of these things may be adjustable via the AppOpps menu, but that menu wasn't intended to be exposed and I believe has been disabled on newer Android releases.
Alternatively, if you're willing to void your (possibly already expired given the age of your device) warranty, risk bricking your phone, and don't mind wiping your data, you can try installing a custom ROM such as CyanogenMod that lets you control permissions more granularly, similar to AppOpps, but built into the operating system.

Going to CM because of one issue might be an overkill (but yeah Privacy Guard is good) and removing this app will be same as well. I wonder what Greenify will do. Will it hibernate the app once the power button is pressed to sleep, or will it not touch it by showing it as "perceptible"?

I don't necessarily agree  that removing the app is overkill (although an entire OS switch due to one app definitely would be).  Greenify might be a less drastic option, but ultimately, if an app is killing your battery, you have to decide which is more valuable: the app or longer runtimes.  Greenify also specifically recommends NOT applying it to messaging apps, since it would typically break real-time notifications: "NEVER greenify alarm clock apps, instant messaging apps unless you don't rely on them. Please do verify the impact of greenified apps on which you heavily rely."


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How to change the language of the playstore on android phone (samsung galaxy S4) or at least of applications
I have a samsung galaxy S4, as the title say, running with android, and i am french, therefore, the play store is in french, and the apps are also downloaded and installed in french, without any way in the settings in the play store or the application to change the language back to english, which i want, since the french translation on lots of applications is very poor (and also changes the font)
It's very annoying and i've found no way, anywhere, to fix that

Easiest solution: change your phone's language to english.

You can change the system language by goint to Settings > Language & Input > Language and selecting English (UK or USA, as you wish).
En français, ça se situe dans Paramètres > Langue et saisie > Langue.
But be aware : by the changing the system language, every applications will be changed to that language.

Thanks, it worked perfectly, i just uninstall the apps i want in englush and install them back and it works :)

Some apps in Android like ( Playstore,Yahoo weather.. ) detect automatically your language from the settings of your phone; for example if your phone language is french the Playstore will be in french or if it's in english it will be in english..But there are also some apps which allow the user to change their language without changing your phone language; example Ted app,I have my phone in english and I use this app in french


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How can I switch the weather layout in Beautiful Widgets from clock/current conditions mode to forecast mode?
I am trying to setup a lock-screen widget set to suit my liking.  I have the top of the screen covered exactly how I want it with the current weather, clock, and battery meter provided by SiMi widgets, shown below.
The bar underneath it is Beautiful Widgets Small Weather.  In many screenshots (including the second one shown, below) I see Beautiful Widgets set in forecast mode, where it shows only the forecast for the next few days rather than a clock and current weather.
For the life of me, I can't figure out how to cause the widget to go into this mode, and I'm hoping others here might know the answer.
This is what I have now:

This is what I'd like the weather line (below my dark conditions/clock/battery) to look like:

Beautiful Widgets installs a bunch of individual widgets that can be used. The one with the clock and weather is the "SuperClock" (or "Beautiful Home", maybe) widget. It sounds like you just need to select "Beautiful Weather 4x1" when picking a widget (unless the lock screen widget thingy doesn't give that choice - is that the case?).

Yes, you are exactly right!  I figured this out myself but a moment ago and came to answer my own question.  You'll get accepted answer as soon as it lets me do so :)  Thanks!


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Nexus 5, IMEI 0, how to restore IMEI?
I dropped my old Nexus 5 on asphalt, and the phone display crashed.
I made a backup, buy new phone, and restored the backup on it.
But I did not know that before restoring I must take a backup of EFS.
So now when I dial *#06# I've got "IMEI 0" answer.
But phone can dial, works OK, but "IMEI 0" confuses me, and it's may be illegal to have IMEI 0.
Can I restore IMEI myself? I have no backup of EFS from new phone.
(There is no LG service centers in my local area.)

Finally, I found the answer on Russian forum:
http://4pda.ru/forum/index.php?showtopic=514132&st=6080#entry38865326
You can use Google Translate for it.
Download archive: http://4pda.ru/forum/dl/post/6001635/imei_full_recover%26exc.rar (you may need to register there, use Google Translate).
Open .docx document from the archive and use Google Translate to translate it to English.
All is working now, thanks God.

@Yes Russian website need registration.

See this thread and scroll down to the EFS backup section-- efs contains "things like your MEID or IMEI... your data profiles.. radio settings." etc.
Usually backing up a phone (with clockworkmod recovery, for example) will back up the /data and /system partitions... maybe /cache... but not usually the efs...)
So I'm not clear if you're saying you've overwritten your new phone's EFS partitions  (/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/modemst1 and /dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/modemst2) with .img files from your old phone?  Or perhaps with zeros?  Not clear exactly.
If you have the old phone still and can get into recovery, I bet you can probably still use the provided .zip to grab the efs partition backups.  Or, if you only have adb access, you can still probably dd them to the SD card manually.
If you choose to copy the old phone's EFS to the new phone, check to make sure it's legal in your area.  Anyway, hope this helps.


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Remove Quick Settings from notification pulldown
I've been trying to find a way to hide or disable the quick settings toggles in the notification pulldown. I'm using an LG Optimus Fuel running a rooted LG-stock Kitkat ROM (Xposed Framework is installed). Any suggestions?

Bumping this because I'd like an answer as soon as possible. :)

After a lot of searching, I've found my own answer. The Xposed module "LG G2 TweaksBox" works with the LG Optimus Fuel for reasons unknown and allows changing what's visible in the notification pulldown, as well as the every other option of the module. Hopefully this provides help to others with the same issue.


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Install keyboard on Android Wear
I've got an Android wear device.(the LG G Watch) And I installed some APK apps via ADB. How can I install a keyboard on Android Wear that I can use in apps I installed with ADB? I tried plugging in a keyboard to the Android Wear but it didn't help. Thanks!

AFAIK there's a version of Minuum keyboard for wear – if you want a keyboard directly on the device. You can see it in action on Youtube (second half of it) – or check the Minuum Youtube channel.

@Izzy I know but I cant use it in other apps :-(

Ah – OK, I couldn't check (have no Wear device). Sorry to hear.

I found the solution. I can send text input to my Android Wear device this way:

adb shell
input text <your_text>

Hope it will help someone else!
More info here: http://blog.rungeek.com/post/42456936947/sending-keyboard-input-via-adb-to-your-android


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Removing an android app making troubles from Recovery mode
I have "Call Recorder" app installed on my android phone and changed the recording option to Kernel and choose another device name. It caused phone to stop its touch working and etc after auto-running this app when rebooting.... Now what can I do to solve this problem by preventing this app of running in start-up? Maybe these ways are helpful: 1- To remove app's files installed on storage from the file manager of recovery mode. but which folder or files? 2- Maybe using one of wipe options in recovery. but which one can help me? 3- Or every way else...
Thanks for your help...

Try rebooting in safe mode. After getting the power menu, hold down on power off and choose reboot in safe mode.
You could also use adb commands found in this similar thread.
If you don't feel comfortable with that, you may have to do a factory reset.


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How to see YouTube video title in landscape mode?
Scenario: Playing a mix playlist in car dock in landscape mode. Like current song and want to see name.
How do I do this?
Things I've tried:

Collapsing the video just shows the mini player in the corner with playlist in background, no video info.
Onscreen menus have no choices that show video info.
Tapping while playing also shows no video info.

Workarounds, sort of:

I can turn the device to portrait and info shows. Not convenient when in dock or while driving.
I can share the video with myself via email then scroll down and read the email body without sending it. Also inconvenient and stops the song since YouTube can't play in background. (And, philosophically, this is a goofy way to do this.)

How can I see the name of the video (song in my case) currently playing? I'm sure there is a simple way that I am just missing.
Android 4.4.2, and whatever the latest version of YouTube is at the time of this writing, with the new fancy red top bar.

Since YouTube v11.13.56 (April 14, 2016), tapping the screen while in landscape mode will show the video title (alongside other info).

The video title can now be seen in landscape mode

If you have another device with you, you can use Google Now's voice command to ask what song is playing. Be sure to enable the "always listening" option in the Google app's settings.
This might work on the same phone, but I believe when you launch the voice command, it will pause the YouTube video.

It does stop video on the same phone. If I had a second device I'd just tape it to my dashboard in portrait mode and play music on it instead, hehe. :)

Ah. When you get a new phone, you return your old one or keep it? Maybe you can use that once you do get a new one.

Maybe... But surely there must be a way to see the title of the video...

One good solution would be to purchase Play Music All Access, and you can play the video in the background. Your screen would turn off, but you can turn it on and they music is displayed on your lock screen.


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Samsung Kids Mode - rewrap the presents
I didn't spot an option for this in a quick review, but my 3 year old would like for all the apps and/or all the videos in the Kids Mode application to get re-wrapped so she can open them again.

Go to Parental control (Adult+child icon next to open door exit icon)
Tap Activity at top and tap Media
Remove items you wish to 're-wrap'
Go back to the Kids mode (back arrow) and visit the videos app
Go back to Parental control and re-add the media.


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Why are bluetooth devices shown as paired, even though they are not even available?
When you pair a two bluetooth devices (e.g., a sound system with your mobile phone), the mobile phone will forever list the sound system as a paired device, even if you're physically so far away (>10km), that it is obviously impossible that there is a connection betwen the two devices.
What is going on? Why is the device shown as paired? Is this just poor naming?

The Paired devices section list out the devices which are already paired with your device. i.e., just an entry. However, it doesnt matter paired device are actively in connected state. Even when the paired device is not connected currently, the paired device section will list out since it has been paired already. if it bothering, you may long press the paired device and delete it but you need to paired it again to transfer the files.
hope this helps!


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Adblock plus not working
I installed Adblock Plus on my Galaxy Tab 3 and it doesn't work. It keeps saying "Waiting for traffic on port 2020". I tried following these instructions and setting up the internet connection to use proxy local host and port 2020. My device is rooted. By the way, is there a simple website I can use to test to see if Adblock plus is working?

If all else fails, you could try a different ad-blocking program. I use AdAway now. It is available in the f-droid repository, which I assume is where you also got Adblock (since Google Play Store has removed all ad-blocking apps).

You're correct on needing to have your device rooted, be sure and double check whether your device is actually rooted or not, you can can do this by getting an app called "Root Checker Basic", it's free.
You also need to give adblock plus "SuperUser" rights using an app called SUPERSU.
This can be obtained from the google play store for free, after installing it simply run adblock plus again, supersu will will then qss if you want to grant super user rights to the adblock app, select yes with no timeout limit as you don't want it constantly nagging you to re approve it's rights every 15 mins.

I had the same "waiting for traffic" problem when I rebooted (worked perfectly before reboot). Simple solution is to manually force close ABP via settings, open ABP and it will function properly again

very interesting; I didnt have the "waiting" problem, but it was just not working; I reboot and nothing changed, still ads coming thru it; but the force kill seems to be working til now! So many ppl having problem with it, and the answer is so simple; I read they have no ppl to work on it right now; may be someone could contribute a patch that would make it run smooth to us all :), thx!

If you are rooted, I would recommend AdAway. Adblock previously targeted the hosts file which is global. The hosts file method does not require setting any proxy settings. Adblock decided to change to the proxy based method though. AdAway uses the hosts method (and thus requires root)
Link (apk link if you scroll down):
https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=org.adaway

Make sure that Filtering is enabled. Open the Adblock Plus app, and turn ON Filtering.
Also, make sure that filters are updated. In the Adblock Plus app, update the filters by clicking on the circular double arrows.
Then, restart your phone. If it's really rooted (you might want to check with a root checker app), then you don't need to do anything else.
To verify if Adblock is working, you can install an app that has ads. In the example below, I installed the Back It app. At the left, you can see a Line add at the bottom; Adblock is disabled here. At the right, you can see there is no ad, and there is an Adblock Plus icon at the notification bar.

Fanboy's list hangs on "downloading..."

@Celeritas Why not try something else? I use EasyList.


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Windows 10 and fastboot driver | Nexus 5X
I can not use fastboot on my pc with Windows 10 to flash something on my Nexus 5X.
I've installed Ubuntu and adb/fastbook works correctly.
With Ubuntu I've installed TWRP and SuperSU.
On Windows 10:
- Adb works.
- I've Android Studio with the latest platform-tools.
- I've tried with 15 seconds ADB Installer v1.4.3.
- I've tried with this answer.
- I've already removed all usb-driver (as Nexus Root Toolkit suggest) and retry all.
What can I do?

What does device manager show while you boot in fastboot mode?

An "Android Bootloader Interface"

Did you try the drivers form the Android developer site? https://developer.android.com/studio/run/win-usb.html

I'm pretty sure there are some 3rd party fastboot installers for Windows that might work in your scenario.  The XDA Developer's website had a few handy installers for Windows 10 fastboot you might want to check out.
Fastboot and ADB Installer for Windows 10

I've already seen that topic (3° point - 15 seconds ADB Installer)

I see (again) the second video and, I don't know why, now it works. Thanks.


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Using an audio dock on CM10.1 i9100
I'm running the CM10.1 nightlies on my Galaxy S2 (i9100). I've purchased the KitSound GALS2Dock, which has audio out over USB, but it doesn't work.
I've asked KitSound via Twitter, and they told me to switch on the Audio Output Mode. I think this is a Samsung specific setting, but I found this in the samsung specific CM10.1 settings menu.

(It says USB-audio dock - use passive audio out from the dock)
I've checked it, and now the phone audio stops (so that's one thing) but my box nor my TV recognises the sound. It does work when I plug it in the regular audio jack.
So I'm thinking this is a software issue. My question: where could this issue be? Is it CM10.1? Is it CM in general (EG: downgrading to CM10 wouldn't help? Or do I need to switch back to a stock samsung ROM in it's entirety to have this functionality work (I'd prefer not to).
Any ideas?
Thanks

Downgrading to the leaked 4.1 (official) firmware fixes the problem. I'll update this answer if I find out if it works on CM10.

It would be proprietary drivers then ;)

Yeah, I guess you're right. I'm pretty sure the setting above is the right one though. Usually, when the CM team creates stuff, they somehow find workarounds! I hope they will, because I don't like TouchWizz.

I know that this has been fixed in some of the latest CM10 nightly releases. As a matter of fact, I'm running JellyBam 4.1 (based on CM10) and the USB audio does work without issues. When I've updated to JellyBam 5.2 (based on CM10.1), USB audio stopped working. So I had to revert back to 4.1, which is, in my opinion, an excellent release anyway.
I've read in forums that the problem is not proprietary drivers or anything like that (it is working on CM10 nightlys afterall), but rather than CM team has not finished implementing all audio features on 10.1 yet. The need to migrate this patch to CM10.1, that's all.
So my advice is to install CM10 nightly or JellyBam 4.1. You will enjoy Android 4.1.2, and of course, your USB audio.

That's great to hear though, because that means that in a later stadium, I'll probably be able to enjoy the audio out on 4.2 or maybe even 5.0 by that time :) Thanks!

I had this working on CM10 by un-checking this box, and using an app called dock audio switcher. It would detect the dock and automatically change the audio output through the USB.
However, I have tried using this on CM10.1, and this app no longer works. I've also tried using the USB passive audio setting in the advanced menu, and this also no longer works.
The odd thing is when I use the USB passive audio I get no sound whatsoever, but when I use the dock audio switcher I can hear a bump from the speakers, similar to when you first plug a audio cable into the phone jack.
So it seems that its activating the audio to USB, but it just cant push it over.

Dock Audio Switcher is an apple app right?

Sad days. I hope a developer picks this up soon, because it's a pretty nifty feature! I'm no fan of Samsung's software, but they nailed this. Thanks for the feedback though!


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What does a grey Wi-Fi icon mean?

Possible Duplicate:
What does it mean when the connectivity icons in the status bar go white/gray?

I've been searching google for this and I haven't been able to find a clear answer for this. Some say it's "insecure connection to Google servers", others say it's only blue when it's syncing etc.
The idea is that connecting to two different WiFi routers I get different icons.
One shows blue, the other grey. The only difference between them is that the one that shows grey uses a certificate to authenticate, while the blue one uses a password, like any regular router.
So what's up?

It is the internet state indicator - grey means that your internet connection cannot reach Google's test server, and the blue icon means that you have a strong connection with Google's test server.
If it is grey, you may have issues accessing some internet services on your device, blue should work fine.
This is available on all types of data connections.

Thank you, Liam. So it's not a security issue or anything like that, probably the firewall, right?

@LiamW AFAIK it's not the "test server", but indicating that your data sync connection (for contacts, calendar, etc.) to Google's servers is established and stable, as Coder101 pointed out in his answer.

Its whether or not you've currently got a connection to Google's servers for sync services such as syncing contacts. Gray means you don't but blue means you do.

Thank you. It's odd though, I can still use Gmail, Play  Store etc even when the icon is Grey.

What does "good connection" mean though?

I've edited the answer


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android keeps on restarting with optimizing apps
Problem:
It constantly restarts with optimizing apps.
Some Background:

This phone was running on low disk space some days back, which I
resolved by removing unwanted files.
Some apps are third party apps installed by downloading from websites.
I have searched other threads and none seems to be solving my issue.
I have done a "cache wipe" as well, which didn't solve the issue.
This has android version 6.
I am able to run Fastboot and have access to Fill-Z touch recovery.
I obviously don't want to format (easy solution) this phone as that
would delete all the data in there.

Extra resource:
vimeo link describing problem
If anyone can let me know how can I disable this "Optimizing app" before the start, I'd be glad.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

That usually means it has trouble with one app. The cyanogenmod tag lets me assume you've got a custom recovery on the device. Boot into that. Hopefully you have either ADB capabilities there, or the recovery includes a file manager (e.g. Aroma; [tag:twrp] has both). Navigate to the tombstone folder (usually /data/tombstones) and check the "trace" block of the latest files. I suspect it always mentions the same app/package-name. If so, delete that app's data directory (/data/data/<package_name>). Next boot should succeed. // Had that recently myself …

Note that mean you will lose that app's data as well! // Please let us know if that worked out.

@Izzy Seems a good suggestion. Unfortunately, I am not that of an expert and my aroma file manager is not working right now. It says no
cwm/aromafm/aromafm.zip in path'.  Any help on getting that installed would be awesome. I do have adb and fastboot access but I am not that expert there either.

adb shell, then cd /data/tombstones. ls lists the contents. Viewing those files on-device would obviously be a bit tricky for you, so the easiest would be pulling them to your computer: adb pull /data/tombstones tombstones would pull the entire folder and place it onto your PC. Then investigate with the tools you're familiar with. Having found the culprit, from adb shell (as root) rm -rf /data/data/<culprits-package-name>. To exit from adb shell type, well, exit :)

On rare instances, this could be corruption of the Dalvik/ART cache, possibly even a defective eMMC storage chip. Honestly at this point I would backup any data that is important and clean install (wipe everything). Once of the things anyone on a custom ROM should be prepared to do at any time is wipe all data and reinstall, kind of goes with the whole "custom rom" way of life, so to speak.

Thanks @Izzy. I was able to resolve the issue by using your suggestion. I tried some extra steps.
I flashed "Aroma file manager" because that was not installed in my Phill Z recovery. One thing to note was that Aroma File Manager had to be flashed twice(using zip install from external memory); thus it allowed me access to /data/tombstones as well as /data/data/<Package_name>. I not only removed problematic packages, but also removed some clutter folders which were lying there unused. Viola!
I would want to make this as answer If @Izzy can post this comment as answer. Thanks!

\o/ Glad I hit the nail with my hammer :) Summed up everything in an answer as requested. Enjoy the revival :) // @acejavelin if it were a corrupted Dalvik/ART cache, the "optimizing apps" should have fixed that: doesn't that rebuild the very same cache? But definitely the backup idea is a good reminder :) And your hint of "being prepared" does not only apply to custom ROMs: being on such one often has another "backdoor" (thanks to root) a "common stock user" does not have …

I had a similar issue not that long ago: the culprit seems to be some app ART cannot compile for some reason. As you successfully applied my solution and confirmed, let me sum up the facts from the comments in an answer:
1. figure which app is the culprit.
On each of those crashes, the Android system sets a "tombstone" on the "grave" of the dying process – something known on Unix/Linux systems as Core Dump. Those core dumps are placed into /data/tombstones, with at maximum 10 files kept (after that, the oldest one will be overwritten on the next occasion). So we need to look to those tombstones to see whats written on them. As you have a custom recovery which offers adb access, the easiest way is:

adb pull /data/tombstones tombstones (will copy the entire directory to your computer)
use a viewer/editor of your choice (best one you are familiar with) to open and investigate each of the tombstones, starting with the newest and walking back.
look into the "stack trace" to see if an app (or it's path in /data/data) is mentioned there. If so, note it. If it's the same app in the next tombstone and the one after, you can be pretty sure this is the case we're describing here.

2. put the "obstacle" out of ART's way
Having identified the app, we need to remove it so art doesn't get stuck with it. For this, again we need adb shell with its root prompt – and the directory name from our tombstones:
rm -rf /data/data/<whateveritwas>

Note this removes all the data of the app as well – so having a backup in advance might be a good idea (in the current state: either adb pull the directory, or do a nandroid backup you can analyze later).
That done, reboot. Now "optimizing apps" should finish successfully.
Alternatives to the command-line approach
Some custom recoveries ship with an integrated file manager, usually called "Aroma". Above steps could also be perfomed with that:

navigate to /data/tombstones
view the tombstones
navigate to /data/data and remove the offender


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Error: java.lang.IllegalStateException: java.util.concurrent.TimeoutException: Thread Binder_C gave up waiting for partitionMixed after 180000ms
After entering the final command to make a mixed-format SD card in How can I move apps to SD on non-adopted Marshmallow storage?:

$ adb shell sm partition disk:179,64 mixed 25

I meet this error:

Error: java.lang.IllegalStateException: java.util.concurrent.TimeoutException: Thread Binder_C gave up waiting for partitionMixed after 180000ms

If it is 75, then the error is:

Error: java.lang.IllegalStateException: java.util.concurrent.TimeoutException: Thread Binder_4 gave up waiting for partitionMixed after 180000ms

How can I fix this? Only 3 results appear in Google, and neither of them helps.

Phone: Sony Xperia M4 Aqua Dual
SD card: SanDisk Ultra micro SDHC UHS-1 Card 16 GB, class 10

Sounds like it is taking more than 3 minutes to partition.  That shouldn't be the case, it's probably hanging for some reason.  That said, what device do you have and what class and size of SD card?

@MatthewRead I have updated my question

You need to eject (unmount) the card first from Settings - Storage. Then follow this: How to turn a portable SD card into internal storage via ADB command?.

It is because the SD card is mounted to have an ext4 partition (alongside with another normal partition), in order to use Link2SD to force moving unmovable apps to SD card. The error shows up after this. Even reformatting the SD card to have only one full partition back does not solve the problem.
To solve it, reformatting it with the phone's default format tool. You may want to reboot the phone after done. Thereafter, you can partition the disk with adb as normal.


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Extracting data from a TWRP backup
How can I extract individual files from a backup created with TWRP? I’ve come across this answer, which is about extracting an APK from the system partition. However, I want to extract files from /data, which gets split across several files in the backup.

Maybe TWRP's custom tar version required for extraction can be compiled for normal x64 PCs. Source code seems to be here: https://github.com/TeamWin/android_bootable_recovery/tree/android-14/twrpTarMain

The files created by TWRP with a *.win or *.win??? extension are tar archives. If a partition gets split across multiple files, each is a tar archive in its own right.
There is a slight difference, depending on the TWRP version used to create the backup. The watershed seems to be 3.2.* or before.
If the backup was created with an older version:
The files are in standard TAR format which any Unix-like OS should understand. Simply rename each file, giving it a .tar extension, and open it in your favorite archive tool (Engrampa on Ubuntu MATE has worked well for this).
If the backup was created with a recent version:
The file format uses custom TAR extensions, which the standard tar tools cannot process, see https://github.com/TeamWin/Team-Win-Recovery-Project/issues/1472. You need to extract the file with TWRP’s own flavor of tar:

If the backup is no longer on the device, copy the required file back. (Should work on any device with TWRP, regardless of where the backup was created.)
Boot into TWRP.
adb shell into the device.
cd to a folder where you want to store your extracted files (I recommend creating a temporary one, extracting files there and then copying them to their intended destination – gives you some security against accidentally overwriting parts of your filesystem).
Extract those files with TWRP’s custom tar build:

tar -tvf data.ext4.win000 will list all files in that particular backup archive (use grep to search for something particular).
tar -xvf data.ext4.win000 path/to/file will extract the specified file. In my case, TAR removed the leading / from file names and placed the extracted file in the current folder, with the path appended.

Another option would be to build TWRP’s custom tar tool on a system of your choice, then do the extraction on that system.

On Ubuntu opening them with double click errors: format not supported but I can extract them with tar -xvf And on Windows I can't extract them with 7-Zip unfortunately.

tar: Ignoring unknown extended header keyword 'TWRP.security.e4crypt'
the command line client is successful in extracting files, but spams the above warning.

I don't know what's changed in the last few years, but extracting a specified file to a relative path isn't working for me using the custom tar that is in twrp-3.6.2_9-0-hima.img from inside an adb shell. Without the leading slash on the specified file's path, I get an error that the specified file is "not in archive". With the leading slash, it extracts the file to the absolute path. Using the -C argument also makes no difference.
I've provided more complete examples here: https://github.com/TeamWin/Team-Win-Recovery-Project/issues/1472#issuecomment-1221440111

cat data.ext4.win??? | tar xvfi -
What this does is concatenate each file matching the pattern data.ext4.win??? and then pipe the concatenated files to tar for extraction. The - as the filename tells tar to extract from stdin. The i option ignores zero blocks which will be in between each archive file concatenated.
In this example, I used the ext4 formatted data partition. Change data.ext4 to match the partition you are extracting.
Disclaimer: This has not been tested in a Windows environment.

For a less hacky solution found here,
for f in data.ext4.win???; do tar xvf "$f"; done
This is a bit simpler without relying on the ignore zeros option of tar to operate properly.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

Try BinWalk, it's a fast, easy to use tool for analyzing, reverse engineering, and extracting firmware images. and for more information take a look at this Quick-Start-Guide.

Just extract it with WinRAR to a folder on the desktop and that's it.


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How to make programs be aware of network connection provided by USB tethering

Possible Duplicate:
Android USB reverse tethering: How to fool the apps

I use USB tethering to connect my HTC Hero to a computer. And the cellphone can surf the Internet through the computer. But some programs cannot find the network connection. I can ping any IP address on the Internet in ConnectBot, which means the connection doesn't have a problem. I think it's due to some options not being toggled that makes these stupid programs not being able to find the connection. More specifically, the notice is:

Connection failed
This application requires network
  access. Enable mobile network or Wi-Fi
  to download data.

How can I make these programs use the USB connection rather than mobile network or Wi-Fi?

can you clarify whether you want to use the phone's data connection from another computer (what most people understood as tethering) or you want to use the computer's data connection from the phone (reverse tethering), since I had the impression that you might be referring to the latter.

Definitely sounds like Reverse Tethering to me. The problem you're facing here is that I don't think that reverse tethering is officially supported by Android, there are various workarounds and apps that can get it working, but as it's not an official feature apps may not even be aware it's possible, so you'd need to talk the dev of each app and request changes from them.  Have you thought about sharing the computer's connection out over wifi, that way your phone would just be connecting to a normal wifi network and everything should work as normal.


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How to stop Recycle Bin from deleting files by default in My Files?
I've installed Omega Droid, which comes with Recycle Bin as a system app - I cannot uninstall it. Normally it doesn't bother me, but when I browse my files in the My Files system app and click a file that has no application registered it gets "handled" by the Recycle Bin app, which kindly deletes it for me without any confirmation! Of course, I can go into the app and restore the file, but this is really annoying. How do stop Recycle Bin from handling any type of file? I don't want to ever use it at all. I would uninstall it if I could.

There is a way to remove system apps. Install this app and it will allow you to remove any app you wish, system or not.

Awesome! I had no idea that's possible - thanks! Removed the Recycle Bin app and that solved the problem.


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How do I defrag my Android device?
I've seen a few apps online, but they don't seem legitimate. From what I've seen, they don't seem to show what's going on while the drive is being defragmented. So I decided I wanna stay away from defragmenters in the Google Play store.
What would be an efficient way to defrag my both my phone's SD card and internal storage?

"Disk defragmentation ... can wear out flash memory quickly", which in turn might cause write performance to diminish forever. Also, defragmenting a flash memory chip might shorten the life of the chip, though it might also speed things up.

Most of us are not filesystems experts, and so most of us are not really qualified to opine regarding these matters. I encourage you to post a separate question on the Filesystems sub-Reddit and provide us with a link to your question. I'm curious to hear what they'll say.

There's no reason to defragment flash media. It serves no purpose, because access to any flash cell is going to take the same amount of time as access to any other flash cell. The reason defragmenting is beneficial to mechanical hard drives is because it makes related data blocks contiguous, so that they can all be read in order as the disk is spinning and minimizing the amount of movement needed from the drive heads. Flash media has none of these moving parts, and therefore does not suffer from the same problems as mechanical drives.
In fact, defragmenting flash media could potentially be detrimental, because it will wear the memory faster while not providing any benefit. Flash memory firmwares will actually fragment data intentionally, in a practice known as wear-leveling, which helps to prevent specific cells from being overused and wearing out more than others.
Flash-based devices generally benefit from TRIMing, but Android 4.3 or higher will do this for you automatically. Apps that claim to perform defragmentation are suspicious at best. Even if they "work", there is no reason to use them.

And given the amount of malicious adware apps in the Play Store these days, you should be wary of installing anything, much more these "performance apps".

(continuing Elibs comment) ...update could be beneficial. Also, increased fragment size can cause increase in memory use to cache all the disk seek data, thus slowing CPU performance.

So how do you manually TRIM a flash device if you are on an older version of Android?  My device has been getting slower and slower and it has been suggested to me that this could help.

@Michael I think there are a few apps out there that will try to do it for you, but they probably require root. I'm also not sure if older version of Android have the necessary binaries. Here's one you could take a look at, though: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2104326

@eldarerathis Thanks, I tried the LagFix app, but unfortunately it said the flash on my device doesn't support trimming, so I guess I am out of luck.

@Elib If you feel you could provide a better answer, I'd be more than happy to accept it if the current accepted answer does not edit in correct info! :)

@VinceEmigh Based on the premise that Elib's information is correct. I would certainly like to see some sources for his contentions, as I've provided several that disagree. I've yet to see any reliable source suggest that defragmenting flash media is useful (not just "not harmful") so I'm entirely skeptical of that comment.

@VinceEmigh All that to say: I have no intention of editing this to add the information in Elib's comment because I have no reason to believe it's at all accurate.

@eldarerathis I didn't fully read through the details at the time I commented - was simply fishing for more info to come back to. After looking into it (correct me if I'm wrong) there is no seek latency for flash drives, so I'm actually not sure what Elib is referring to (would be nice to know). I now understand that flash memory degrades as more writes are performed, thus moving things around actually harms the longevity of the drive. Sorry for the misunderstanding!

@VinceEmigh Defragmenting is beneficial to the file system regardless of the access time for each block/cluster/fragment. The more fragments, the more metadata is required to represent a file, increasing parse/load time. On devices with particularly frequent cycling of space utilization (photos taken, synced, deleted when low on space), the degree of logical fragmentation will tend to be higher. Here is a quick example of flash storage benefiting from defrag, to the point that a major OS automates it: https://www.hanselman.com/blog/TheRealAndCompleteStoryDoesWindowsDefragmentYourSSD.aspx

Defragmenting storage IC memory is not recommended for it may actually break the IC... Just like how SSDs are, you simply do not defragment Storage IC or it may break... also as far as I know Unix systems don't need to defrag since the files are already arranged in such a way that it is faster to access them
a better explanation here: http://geekblog.oneandoneis2.org/index.php/2006/08/17/why_doesn_t_linux_need_defragmenting


text:
How to make screencasts on Samsung Galaxy SIII?
Is it possible to make a screencast (video) with a Samsung Galaxy SIII?
I want to record what the screen looks like as the user interacts with
it. I know I can take a screenshot with Home+Power but I'm not sure
whether besides screenshots it is also possible to make screencasts.
Thanks.

I have not tried any of those, but for a starter (while waiting for good answers) you might wish to take a look into my list of apps for Screen Recording. Also worth a look: other questions tagged screencast, e.g. How to capture screencast video and root not required? / Is it possible record videos of my screen?

Theres an app for that:
SCR free.
You will need root for this
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.iwobanas.screenrecorder.free

SCR Free moved to https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.iwobanas.screenrecorder.free2