text:
"Unfortunately the process com.android.phone has stopped" after upgrade to Lollipop on my S5
I upgraded (over the air) to Lollipop and now the phone process keeps crashing. I tried to wipe its data (actually, in Application manager there are 3 'Phone' apps), tried turning off (including taking out the battery), tried deleting the cache.
Is there something more I can do except reset?

This kind of behavior appears whenever I upgrade or downgrade to a certain Android version. All I do after OTA/flashing is Boot into Recovery, clear the Cache and the Dalvik/Art Cache. That's it. It works usually. I don't know about lollipop though. Worked for Jellybean-Kitkat and Kitkat-Kitkat. If you ever find the reason for such beheviour, do post it here.

how do i delete the dalvik cache (my phone is not rooted)?

Boot into Recovery, depending upon your model there must be some power+Vol Up type of key combination to boot into Recovery. Once you're there, you will see the option to clear Cache as well as Dalvik/Art cache.

There is no option for Dalvik cache in my recovery (the stock one)

Then go ahead with the simple cache.

Supposedly L is no longer using Dalvik, but Art, so just try it or run the upgrade again.

how do i run an upgrade again?

@IttayD you can reinstall it by using your computer.

I had the same problem when I updated on 2015-04-09. I also had three "phone" apps in Application manager and an error was appearing every minute. Stopping phone app did not help, erasing the cache did not help. But I was able to do a backup and then factory reset (Settings -> Backup -> Factory reset). Then I restored from backup and I had to manually put all the programs on the home screen.

You can reinstall Lollipop by installing ODIN onto your computer.
and then you download lollipop, that is compatible with odin, for your S5 HERE.
Your model number for your S5 on the phone underneath the battery. You search that on the website.
These are the steps you do next

Turn off phone.
Hold the Volume Down Button, Home button, and Power button.
Ignore the warning message and press the volume up button to continue.
Connect Phone to Computer
Allow computer to install drivers.
Extract the ZIP file of Lollipop into the ODIN FOLDER.
Open ODIN
Click on the PDA button.
Select the extracted *tar.md5 file.
Click Start!
You should be running Lollipop before you know it!

I tried this already. Didn't solve my issue.


text:
avoid both screen lock and pattern lock
When the screen times out, a screen lock activates that needs to be swiped down. After 5 minutes, a phone lock pattern is activated. Now when I turn on the display I need to both swipe down and enter the unlock pattern.
Is there an option to not need to do both? Optimally, I want the first 5 minutes to require a swipe down and after 5 minutes to require the pattern
I'm using htc desire hd, android 2.2, unrooted (is there a fix when rooted?)

Under Settings -> Location and security there is an option for "Lock screen after" where you can choose how long before the pattern is required.  With this setting changed you can turn the phone off and back on and only have to swipe down.
Under Settings -> Display there is an option for "Screen timeout" that should change the amount of time before the phone goes to sleep.
As far as I know the swipe down is not optional.

In 2.3.2, when using lock pattern, I do not find any setting for a "lock screen after" timeout... :-(

source: Stack Exchange

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

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text:
Where can I confirm that my HTC One XL is evita model?
I want to double check that my HTC One XL is evita model.
I am almost sure I saw it in a menu somewhere but I cannot find it anymore.
Could somebody guide me where I can find such info?

According to the Wikipedia article, all the HTC One XL devices fall under the Evita model. Evita is just the code name for the device. Just about every device is initially manufactured with a "codename". This is more just like an internal name for the device. This could be because they have not decided on a "public brand" for the device yet, or just because they want to call it something else internally.
Sometimes the codename resides in the model name in the Settings -> About Phone. But if you have adb access to your device, you can do something like:
> adb shell
$ getprop

this will dump out all the properties that are configured during the boot process. one of them, probably something like ro.product.device will contain the value evita.

It was ro.product.name. Great explanation and how-to. Thank you.

Codename: Evita
AFAIK, the HTC One XL has the codename of Evita, and no other was attributed to this model.
The XL was introduced into the market just like the HTC One X, but with a significant improvement in communications:

HTC One XL(TE)    4G Network (LTE 1800 / 2600)

PC World Australia article: HTC One XL review: HTC's One X gets the superfast 4G treatment. Is the extra speed worth it?

Phone Information

About the Phone:
To check you device's information, you can go to "Settings" and select "About Phone":

If the codename is presented, you should find it on the information provided there.
Accessing the configuration file:
You can use a file manager and navigate to /system/ and open the build.prop file, that contains all the details about your system.
Locate the lines that start by ro.product to know your device's model; brand; codename; CPU and manufacturer (among others).

References:

PDADB.net Search results for "HTC One" that include the devide codename
GSM Arena - HTC One XL: Full phone specifications
geekaphone.com - HTC One XL Specifications
HTC Smartphones: HTC One XL
Wikipedia: HTC One XL

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


text:
Find carrier allocated public IP address
Fido has a service where they allocate a public IP address for some fees. I have paid the fees and apparently they have allocated my phone a public IP address. In normal circumstances, I should be able to see the IP address in my device settings (status information), but it shows "IP address unavailable". Fido customer service is not able to help, saying that they only have instructions for the iPhone. For any other phone, I should contact the manufacturer.
Any idea how I could go about finding the public IP address that I am paying through my nose for?
Carrier: Fido in Canada.
Phone: Samsung Galaxy S2
OS: Android 4.0.3

Update: I used ADB shell and netcfg to see the ip address of the interfaces: rmnet0 UP       25.44.197.87/24. It keeps changing if I restart the phone. But that IP is not reachable at least using ping. It comes from department of defence in the UK!

That IP will likely be internal to the carrier's network, they regularly use reserved IPs in situations where it "doesn't matter".  You could try visiting ipchicken.com or a similar site from your phone.  If that gives you the address of the carrier's gateway rather than your allocated IP I would assume they've screwed it up.  You'd think they would know what it is since they've allocated it, even if it's dynamic.

Related: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/3715/is-there-a-command-or-application-similar-to-ipconfig?rq=1

I wonder if public IP address means something different to these carriers. It's infuriating, I've been in touch with Fido, Rogers, Samsung and there is no one who even knows how IP addresses are allocated.

So reproducing the solution here for posterity: Need to change the default apn to either publicip.apn or vpn.com. All the other settings remain the same as the original default apn (which is fido-core.appl1.apn). Restart the device and voila!, the phone has a public ip. It can be discovered using adb and netcfg. @MartinSchröder, thanks a lot for pointing out Network Info II tool, its quite useful. Only thing is, after tethering the device, it reports an IPV6 rndis ip as the "internal" ip of the device.

You could always use the browser hit one of the many web pages that will tell you what your IP address is. WhatsMyIp being one such.

That was among the first things that I tried. The reported IP is Rogers gateway device.

Typically your carrier will be using NAT so you will have either a private RFC1918 address or an already allocated public IP.
A free app like Net Tools will tell you the IP assigned directly to your  phone, so can you have IP communications with your carrier. (Net Tools will use netcfg as you have).
If you go to whatismyip.com you will likely find a different IP though because your connection is behind a NAT device. This is why you can't "ping" your phones IP.

This open-source app might fit your needs, called External IP.

This simple application will show your IP addresses(default local &
  external).

Thanks for the link. The solution is to configure the correct APN to get the public ip. But I had to struggle to get this information out of Fido customer service.

Get Network Info II. It also gives you the name of your gateway.

Yes, but I need to find my phone's IP not the gateway.

@CocoroCara: Try the app.


text:
Is there a widget that allows for speed dialing?
Is there a widget that would allow me to have, for instance, 9-10 names so I can call them quickly? Maybe 10 icons associated with 10 names/numbers?

In android you can create a shortcut to do that:

Long press on home screen, a menu will pop up with title "Add to Home";
From there choose "shortcut" -> "Person";
Choose the person you want and then select the default action like call or message. For you it will be call.

You'll see the icon of that person on the home screen upon pressing which will make the call to that person.


text:
How to make HTC Tattoo a Wi-Fi Hotspot
Can the HTC Tattoo act as a wifi hotspot, so that I am able to make my Tattoo an access point and share its internet connection with other wifi enabled devices? If so, how can I do this?
I have rooted the phone and I am running a CyanogenMod with Android version 2.2.1. I have already tried the following:

Barnacle wifi tether, Android wifi tether - neither of the two worked.
I have also seen if there were any default settings to make my phone a wi-fi hotspot, but found there were none of these settings in my phone.
I have also tried a new ROM: nFinity Android 2.3.5, but on this ROM also points 1) and 2) stated above were applicable.

It's possible the Tattoo's wifi chipset does not allow hostap mode. Try tethering with USB.

There are some more suggested apps for the Tattoo here on XDA.  It sounds to me like they have stock firmware that is rooted, however — perhaps that's required.  I've heard of other devices that don't work for tethering with CyanogenMod (and I'm not familiar with nFinity).


text:
How do I change the desktop icon created from a website bookmark?
I created a desktop icon from a bookmark for Wikipedia.com.  Here is a screenshot of the result:

The blue background doesn't look great, I'm wondering if this should be transparent.
Here is the image that I think it's using for the wikipedia icon:

Which is being pulled from by this code in wikipedia's page:
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="//en.wikipedia.org/apple-touch-icon.png" />

The Netflix icon that looks like a banner is a link to Netflix.com, and it has the look I would prefer in the wikipedia icon.
Is there any way I can change the icon?

FWIW the wikipedia page for that image file http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia-mobile-icon.png specifically describes it as "The Wikipedia "puzzle ball" logo with a blue background" so I don't think that it is meant to be transparent

Bit of a kludge, but you could create a web page which sends you to Wikipedia and has an icon according to your taste, and bookmark that.

This is a slightly convoluted workaround, but you could use my app Showr. It lets you add any image to your home screen, and one of the actions it can perform is launching a web page of your choice when clicked.
You could add a Showr widget to your home screen, set it to use any Wikipedia icon of your choice (whether it's already saved to your phone, or by giving it the URL of an icon to download), and set it to launch Wikipedia (in your browser) when clicked. Showr is a free download from Google Play.


text:
How can I integrate and manage SMS from many phones?
I'm looking for a way to integrate SMS messages from my two phones and manage them online using a web site.
I mean that I will be able to send and receive SMS by web, and search my SMS by text.

Google Voice.

Indeed. I lurve Google Voice.

Thank you, but I am not able to login. I receive alert: Google Voice is not available in your country. I read that this site is available only the USA.

Only answering the "search my sms by text" part, but you can quite easily sync the reseived SMS text messages from both phones to the same (or separate) labels in GMail and then easily search both phone's worth of texts in GMail (on the web, or even in the phones' GMail apps) using an app like SMS Backup+.
SMS Backup+ syncs all of the SMS (and optionally MMS) texts received by a phone to GMail, putting them all in a specific GMail label. If you install it on both phones, you can either sync them both to the same label  if you want them all pooled together, or sync to two similar labels to keep them separate and then you can still search both phones worth of texts in one go.
If you sync them all to the same label, just select that label in GMail and search as normal. If you sync them to separate labels then, if your first phone's messages sync to a label called "smsone" and your second to a "smstwo" label, you can search for the word "test" by putting this in the GMail search box:
l:smsone OR l:smstwo test

DeskSMS is another option, recently released by Koush (maker of ROM Manager).  I haven't tried it myself but it's getting great reviews.

Try to use smslemon.com. It is very helpful service. You can send, receive, browse and search your sms. Their Android app can be found here.


text:
Gmail app - cancel notification but see number of unread
I have two problems with the Gmail app:

I'm using LauncherPro and have the Gmail app icon in the down task-bar, but I don't see the unread mail count. How can I make the unread number appear there?
I've found out that the fact that every incoming new mail appears in my notification screen makes me lose concentration with what I'm doing and answer without thinking properly.

How can I stop the notifications about new mail?

For #1, it appears that Google changed the API for the Gmail app, and Frederico has disabled that functionality as a result.
For #2, go to the Settings in the Gmail app and select the account you're using, then uncheck "Email notifications".


text:
How can I extract messages from .sbf file
I have backed up my messages from my Sony Xperia, and now I want to open the file and export them to excel or something more easy to read, but I can't find a program or tool to do that I just have the file and i want to open it and extract specific information. I need some help, thanks!


text:
How do I silence incoming call and text message ringtone without hanging up in the Galaxy Nexus?
I have set up MP3 ringtones for both incoming calls and text messages on my new Galaxy Nexus, but I can't figure out how to silence them without hanging up (in the case of incoming calls) or without having to wait until the entire sound bite is over?  Any suggestions?  Does anyone know how to do that?
Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Some possibilities here: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/4262/how-to-stop-a-phone-from-ringing-without-rejecting-the-call

Like the answers in the similar question Al linked to suggest, try pressing or holding various hardware buttons (Volume, for example.)

Doesn't pressing the volume button silence it?

When the Galaxy Nexus is ringing...
Tap the power button on the right side of the screen.
The ringtone will stop and the screen will switch off. BUT the call has not been hung up.
You can even press the power button again to switch the screen back on and the ringtone is silent if the call is still waiting to be answered. The voice call will still be at the correct volume when you actually answer it.

Use volume-rocker
Click either up or down volume to silence your phone. This is the user-manual-recommended way. When you click it your screen stays on.
Android user manual reference

Note: this usually works with any phone, not just Androids. It used to work with old stupid-phones (antonym of smart-phones) as well.

Just press power key at the right side of device. It will become silent.

A third option is to enable the setting so you can flip your phone face down when ringing to silence the phone.  Under Sound Settings > Phone Call Silence I believe.

Side question: after having used this exact feature (called "silence incoming calls" on my phone), as of a few months ago, my phone only rings or vibrates once (shorter than a 1s), as if "silence incoming calls" kicked in, in spite of me not having touched the phone which is lying on its back, not upside down on the screen. Is this a bug, is there a workaround, is it a HW failure of some sort? P880 user, BTW. Would this make more sense as a separate question, rather than a comment?


text:
Is there a way to switch Android users from the command line?
Using the following command, I managed to enable multi-user mode in an Android device that doesn't officicially support it: adb shell setprop fw.max_users 5. For good measure I also added the following entry to the build.prop file:
fw.max_users=5

There's now a Settings menu for creating additional users in my device. Upon creating a new user, I would be switched to the multi-user lock screen with icons at the bottom showing the user accounts available in the device. From there I can choose my user log-in.
Moreover, the account data of the new user survives a reboot. From this, I can conclude that multi-user mode is working.
The problem is my Android device, a media player running some version of Jellybean 4.2, normally doesn't display the lock screen. No lock screen appears when I start up the device nor after I suspend or put the device to sleep.
In fact, the only time I see the lockscreen is immediately after creating a new user. Once I've logged in as the new user, I can't switch back to the lock screen because the device is configured to show only the bottom panel and therefore I have no way to click the User icon in the Quick Settings menu of the missing top panel.
It seems a bit overkill to do some low-level system hacks just to achieve the desktop Linux equivalent of Control-Alt-F8, etc. Is there a command, perhaps using some intent or activity available via the Android activity manager tool (am) that would allow me to switch between different user log-ins or at least to switch to the lock screen that would allow me to log in as a different user?

Just a raw idea: could it help to toggle keyguard for that (which is responsible for "locking" the device)? If so, that could be done using e.g. Tasker, and you could create a shortcut to that task on your homescreen: touch that, switch screen off, then on again, and you should be presented with a lock screen – where you hopefully could switch users, and then use the shortcut to toggle keyguard off again. If that works for you, and you consider it a "valid answer", let me know and I will make it one :)

Yes there is.
When the community discovered this feature in android 4.1 (the code was exist but has not been declared yet so Google did not open the feature in Settings), I remember playing with this in my Nexus 4.
So, here are some commands that I remember for the android Terminal:

Create new user: pm create-user User_Name
To switch between users: am switch-user User_ID
To get the list of all the users: pm list users
To delete a user: pm remove-user User_ID

Hope this helps.

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


text:
Not able to select entire image for wallpaper
When I put the wallpaper in /dcim/Camera and go to change the wallpaper and choose Media gallery and I select the wallpaper I want, it asks me to choose only a small region of the image. What do I need to do to use the entire image?

The phone wants to make a wallpaper that's the right size and shape for your screen, on most phones that's as tall as your screen resolution and twice as wide as your screen width (notice how the wallpaper scrolls slightly as you move between your home screens). There are posts on here that list the correct wallpaper sizes for most Android devices.

List of wallpaper sizes for various devices http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/2026/what-size-should-images-be-for-android-wallpaper Also no need to put new pictures into the Camera folder (that's really only meant for your devices' camera to write to) just create a folder on your SD-card called pictures, or wallpapers, or something like that and put it in there.

If i remember correctly, you can drag the frame to the full size of the image, so that the whole picture will be selected as background.

The above answer is vague.  Here's a more complete answer.
First
Go through the wallpaper settings and open the image you want to use for wallpaper. You will be prompted to crop it.

Second
Drag the cropping reticule to the bottom right corner.

Third
Drag the left edge of the cropping reticule all the way to the left edge of the screen.  The reticule should grow to encompass the whole image.

Lastly
Tap the "Crop" button at the top right.  It will "crop" the image to the size that it already is, and set it as your wallpaper.
Dénouement
All this because the developers who wrote the wallpaper cropping app couldn't be bothered to check whether the selected image is already the correct size for the device. All they had to do was say "This image is already the right size. Would you like to crop it anyway?", and give us buttons labeled "Crop It" and "Just Use It". Instead, we're stuck with this thoroughly non-intuitive mess.
Well done, Android devs. slow clap
In case anyone is curious, the wallpaper shown in the screenshots above comes along with McKinley Tabor's excellent Asus Transformer Prime Wallpaper Template.

When I try to set wallpaper from gallery I only got option for portrait image not landscape scrolling image throughout screen, check here http://imgur.com/29USrQ4

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


text:
How do I identify apps or settings that cause performance problems?
If I am having performance problems, what tools can I use to identify where my performance lags are coming from?  I have used a System Panel Task Manager, Android System Info, System Manager Free and some others but none of them have really identified the problem children.  System Panel Task Manager came the closest with it's historical look at CPU and memory usage but it didn't let me look at which apps were using how much resources over time.

Starting from Android 11 and up the security for controlling system dependent apps have been limited to root user only so modern android can do such automatically close unresponsive apps by default but if you run admin programs or debuggers it will interfere
How to activate Auto optimization
From Settings , swipe up and tap Battery & device care .
Tap More Options (three vertical dots) and then tap Auto Action .
Enable Daily Auto Optimize to automatically optimize your phone once a day.

Starting from Android 11 and up the security for controlling system dependent apps have been limited to root user only  -- Hi. Can you provide a link for this? I don't think root user should be involved in this at all.

Ah on latest android 13 y cant replicate that y use an app called 3c all in one toolbox (paied version) evething besids kernel settings works in none rooted devices task manager network,  battery settings including settings in the BSM board of the battery where you can set charge max ampere etc actually android 11 is kinda buggy but on android 13 you barely need root from anything  and if you really need to tweak root settings  you can use shizuku,  that supports some apps and acces the rootshell through wireless adb , and the saker app wich can reach root settings

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


text:
Use photo file instead front camera image
Instead of using the real camera, I would like to simulate the camera input as a static image file.
I need to use it in one program, where I can't use 3rd party "fake camera apps" because program asks me only "Do I permit this application to take photos and record videos" and after "Allow" my front camera turns on. I can't even choose the 3rd party fake camera app.
Any suggestions on how to deal with that?

Duplicate (but not yet answered): How to emulate camera input in Android?

As a developer, I don't think that's possible without changing the program you are trying to use.
If that specific program(I suppose it's actually an application) was built to use only the images taken by the integrated front camera, you have to first "teach" it who to use images from other sources. But that's the job of the program developers. You can probably contact them and request this new feature.


text:
Process com,google.process.gapps stopped unexpectedly
Started getting this error in the last few days. It is stopping various things like Gmail, Market and Listen from syncing.
I've read that it can be caused by bad data in records and that you should clear the data on the phone and then edit it on the server, but that's tricky if you don't know which item it is or even which app it is in.
Any suggestions? I've switched it off/on several times. The error occurs when I do just about anything in Listen and can't get my Gmail up at all. Only thing I noticed is that one podcast was showing some error in Listen. Dropped it from the queue, but still getting the problem.
HTC Tattoo on V1.6. Not rooted. No new apps added recently.

Which phone do you have?  Which Android version?  Is it rooted?  Stock firmware or custom ROM?  Did this start happening suddenly, or after installing some app?  Which troubleshooting steps have you already tried (e.g. factory reset)?

Added details above. Thinking I'll try a factory reset. Never done that before, but will back up any files I think I need.

I've done a factory reset now. Seems okay so far, but have to manually reinstall apps as I couldn't do a backup

Galaxy S (i9000), unrooted, same problem. Lots of apps...

Didn't find a reason for the error, but ended up doing a factory reset and since then everything has been fine. I had to reinstall my apps, but my Google data came back.

Since then I've used Cyanogen to get to 2.3


text:
What does "Battery Use" tell and how is it implemented?
I have several questions about "Settings -> About Phone -> Battery Use", mainly because I don't understand what exactly those items mean.
(1) Does "Cell standby" indicate the energy used by the radio communication with the towers when there is no voice/data communication?
(2) What does "Phone idle" indicate?
(3) What does "Android System" indicate, energy used by the OS code execution?
(4) What does "Mediaserver" indicate?
(5) What does "Android Core Apps" indicate?
(6) It also lists energy consumed by individual apps. I'm wondering if those items only include the energy consumed by CPU+RAM+Flash, because the energy used by display+wifi+cell is already listed separately without breakdown to apps. Am I correct?
(7) How does Android measure energy used by individual hardware component? For example, to measure energy used by display, does it measure by voltage and current or just measure by the time the display and/or backlight is turned on? If the latter is the case, how does it handle different hardware?
(8) How does Android measure energy used by CPU/RAM/Flash of each individual process? I guess for CPU, it may use exampling and find how long each process occupies the CPU, just like many performance profilers do. But for RAM and Flash, it seems to be very expensive to measure it on-line.
(9) Is information in "Batter Use" accurate? :-)
Any help would be highly appreciated. Thanks!

If you click on each one, it will give you more info.  I don't know the answer to all your questions but I'll share what I do know...

(1) Does "Cell standby" indicate the
  energy used by the radio communication
  with the towers when there is no
  voice/data communication?

Yes.

(2) What does "Phone idle" indicate?

It's the power your device uses to stay on when you are not using it.  The CPU is still going and the memory is kept powered up...

(3) What does "Android System" indicate, energy used by the OS code execution?

There is a separate option for Android OS which refers to the execution of apps.  The Android System is the energy used to run certain background services like AutoSync and the software side of communicating with cell towers...

(4) What does "Mediaserver" indicate?

I believe this is all audio and video processing.  I don't think it'll reflect the total time you played music, but instead, the total processing time the CPU used to decode it.

(5) What does "Android Core Apps" indicate?

I don't have this on my phone.  I wonder if this is what is labeled "Android OS" for me.

(6) It also lists energy consumed by
  individual apps. I'm wondering if
  those items only include the energy
  consumed by CPU+RAM+Flash, because the
  energy used by display+wifi+cell is
  already listed separately without
  breakdown to apps.

Great question.  I don't know.

Hey Matt. Thanks for the answers (+1). Regarding (5), you're right that I saw both "Android Core Apps" and "Android OS". For example, this page, http://www.geardiary.com/2009/12/29/android-tip-stopping-apps-using-any-cut/, has "Android Core Apps". So is the energy consumed by executing code in kernel is categorized in "Android System" or "Android OS"? You mentioned that Android OS refers to execution of apps. What exactly are those "apps"?


text:
Once you have Ubuntu installed on a Nexus 7, how do you get back to stock Android?
I currently have a Nexus 7 with the default "out-of-the-box" Android Stock OS (as of this post JB 4.2.2).
From what I've read online, Ubuntu has made a mobile version of their OS. Usually, they specially demo their mobile OS with Google's Nexus devices.
I would like to try Ubuntu on my Nexus 7, but don't want to do it permanently. Though, I still want to have the experience as if Ubuntu runs the tablet, and not Android (Just to try something new and a change of pace).
I wanted to know that if I were to permanently to install Ubuntu on my Nexus 7 device, if and how would I get my device back to the stock Android OS that came with it "out-of-the-box"?
In other words, I know you are able to install Ubuntu on Android, but is it possible, once you have cleared Android off, and only Ubuntu exists, to go from Ubuntu back to Android?
Maybe I don't know enough about what happens when you install Ubuntu on an Android device, but if there is some detail that you feel is missing, please feel to fill in the blanks of my stupidity.

Reinstall OS on Nexus 7, Is it possible to reinstall stock Android on the Nexus 7 AFAIK a standard re-flash will work, but you could probably also do a backup in a custom recovery (ClockworkMod, etc)

Directions taken from OMG! Ubuntu!. I’m assuming you backed up your data.

Download the corresponding Android image from Google.
Extract the downloaded ZIP.
Connect your Nexus 7 to the computer with the USB cable.
Open a Terminal window and type: adb reboot-bootloader, this will reboot the tablet into the Android bootloader.
In the terminal, use the cd command to enter the folder created after you extracted the previously downloaded ZIP, for example, Desktop/<name of extracted folder>
Once there, run the shell script: sudo ./flash-all.sh and wait for it to complete.


text:
How can I make Dolphin open bookmarks in the current tab?
I have loaded the Dolphin browser on my HTC Android phone.
Each time I open my bookmark it loads a new tab in the browser which means I have many running and I have to go in and close the tabs.
Does anyone know how to make it use an existing tab of the browser? I don't want the browser to have so many tabs open. I realise this will mean if I have TWO apps the previous will show then open the bookmark. Alternatively, is it possible to have Dolphin close my tabs when the Home button is pushed?

In the current version of Dolphin:
Menu Button > Settings (ship's wheel) > Customize > Open links in > By default
Default will open in the page is set up to open the link into (normally the same page), other choices are Open in background tab (current tab remains the active tab), and Open in new tab.
Older versions of Dolphin had option under Labs instead of under Customize.

Optional:
I find it best to stick with the default open in the same tab, but will often use a bookmarklet to force tabs to open in a new tab when I want to make sure I don't fail to use the context menu to open a link in a new tab, for which I assign a gesture written as "nt" in Dolphin, or a keyword shortcut of "nt:" in Firefox (where : is not hard to type on a keyboard).
Name:     NT:  New Tab
Address:  javascript:(function(){var%20a=document.getElementsByTagName('a');document.title='||'+document.title+'||';for(var%20i=0,j=a.length;i<j;i++){a[i].setAttribute('target','_blank');}})();
When creating the bookmarklet in Dolphin, create by replacing content of a newly created bookmarklet with the above content, typing a space instead of  %20 and  and suggest changing the folder to one you have created as "bookmarklets" within your bookmarks.
see my page on Dolphin Gestures


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Is there any way to root the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1?
Is there any way to root the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1? I found some instructions on rooting the 7 inch version but I'm not sure if that matters. Also the instructions include flashing UK firmware. I'd prefer to do as little changes to my device as possible so I can get a backup as close to the way it came as possible.

Have you looked at How can I root the Galaxy Tab 10.1?

@Izzy that's not the tab 3 :-)

Well, it's a Tab 10.1 with Android 3 #D OK, already thought so, but was not 100% sure...

These instructions are pretty hard to follow but should work: root insntructions


text:
Install zImage on Android 2.2 devcie
How do I install zImage on Android 2.2 device? I have one galaxy tab 7.0 and one NVIDIA Tegra 250 delvel kit.
I was trying to using fastboot on NVIDIA Tegra 250 but I failed.
I could load zImage using following command
fastboot boot zImage

The device shows that it downloaded the image but nothing happened. If I forced to restart then the kernel wasn't updated.
As for the Gallaxy Tab, I was trying to load the zImage with odin. But the input format should be either .tar or something else not the zImage.
I have been trying to figure this out for two weeks and I am still stuck.
I will be very appreciated if you guys could help with that.
Thanks in advance..

I think you might be able to flash it directly to the device with fastboot flash zimage /path/to/zImage. I don't have a means of testing this at the moment, but you could give that a try.

I've attempted to answer but could you provide more information on what source you're using for this kernel and how you're producing it?  (We can't help you with the dev side, but the info may help us tell you why the flashing isn't working.)

The Odin-able kernels for my Galaxy S are simply the zImage in a .tar file.  But the zImage has a peculiar format, and I believe it's specific to Samsung devices.
I would assume that either the kernel you've compiled is the wrong format, or simply doesn't work and the system is restoring the stock kernel from the recovery image.

fastboot boot zImage

is for testing purpose only. It will boot your phone to the kernel for only once. The next time you boot your phone, it will use the original kernel.


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How often does Android refresh the battery statistics listed in the Settings?
Does anyone know how often Android refreshes battery statistics? This screen is Settings > Battery. This may only apply to Android versions >4.0.

final: it took me 1 minute to get my app visible in the list

I believe it is real-time. Meaning, the stats are always updated as the battery is being drained (or charged).

To my knowledge it is. And the term "battery stats" might be a bit misleading here -- it's rather a statistic on how/which apps "sucked on it" ;)

You can check the source code of battery history and battery history part of Settings. I hadn't got time to properly check it out, but from an initial scan, I think it's updated every time the app is started. The file from which the app generates the statistic however, batterystats.bin, is probably collected at real time as the system starts and kills apps and system services are turned on and off.

first link says at line 323 Returns the total time (in 1/100 sec) spent executing in user code. I think this is it, right?

@Lumma: I believe that's referring to real/user/sys time


text:
Why do the photos taken on my HTC One X not have a date/time displayed on them?
When I take a photo on my HTC One X, the date and time that the picture was taken do not appear appear (printed) on the photo. I can't set the date or time in the settings, either. If I use a third party application, I can set the date/time and see the timestamp on the photo.
My old HTC Legend (Gingerbread) had an option to choose whether the timestamp would appear or not.
Is it a feature not supported by Android 4.x, or is it just because of HTC One X model? It was not present on Ice Cream Sandwich or since I've upgraded to Jelly Bean.

What do you mean by "appear on the photo": "Printed" on top of the picture, or are you talking about EXIF tags inside the file? Aside from that, you should always have the timestamp of the image file. I never saw timestamps printed on top of the picture with digital cams, though it is no problem technically (and there might be apps supporting it directly).

sorry for the misleading usage. I mean example [ 05 Dec 2012 15:27PM ] printed on the corner of Photo Image. Not the tag inside the file.

Thank you for clarifying! See my answer below in this case.

This feature is rather be app-specific. Probably the default photo app on your Legend does this by default, while the one on you One X does not. To achieve the desired results on your new device, you might need to find a 3rd party photo app supporting this feature. Your phone is certainly capable of it, that's not the issue.

Thanks for the answer. I really wonder why the default app of One X doesn't support this. :(

I rather wonder why the default app on the Legend did that -- except if you needed to turn on this feature explicitly. That's a quite old feature from 35mm film cameras (where it made sense) which does no longer make sense with digital photos, where this information is available with file and EXIF information and thus can be "printed" or not just on demand. I wouldn't want to have that on my photos :)

on Legend, I can turn on and off. Not by default. I just want to have default app of One X supports that kind of turn on and off feature :)

OK -- that makes perfectly sense now :) Might want to take a look at PhotoCap or UCam Ultra Kamera, which seem to offer this feature. If one of them is acceptable as a solution, let me know, and I add it to the answer test.

Thanks Izzy. I am using Camera360 at the moment. Will check out those apps suggested by you too :D


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Weather Calendar No Longer Syncing
I have the standard Weather calendar added to Google Calendar, and I can see the weather for today on goocal in my desktop browser just fine.
I noticed that the weather was no longer showing up on my calendar.  It was showing the weather for last week - Mon-Tue-Wed, but there was no entries for this week.
So I deleted the weather calendar completely.  Verified it was no longer showing up on my Android.  Then I added it back again.  Now I can (still) see it on my desktop in the browser, but in Android the calendar no longer shows up at all.  The Weather calendar is quite definitely selected as "Synce, Visible" in the calendar settings.  I also tried another calendar app that uses the Google Calendar database (Business Calendar); again, the Weather calendar is selected to be shown, but it does not show up.
Before you ask why I don't just use the weather widget, to be honest I don't particularly care about the weather, I just like having something on my calendar every day - it makes it more obvious in "Agenda" view that I have nothing going on today
UPDATE: I just tried the "Day of the Year" calendar and that shows up just fine.  My speculation is that the weather calendar requires your current location, and that's the source of the problem.  I'd rather see the weather, which is at least marginally useful, than the day of the year though.

Well the answer seems to be to use Weather Underground's iCal subscription.  It shows up and it gives you more complete weather info.  Only downside- it doesn't automatically pick up your location, it's hardcoded to a specific location.

Having precisely the same issue on HTC evo v Virgin load and current updates
Also seems ""google contacts and events" works on neither calendar app or widget.  And  "google US holidays" works on both (right now?)
Got the answer.
 I went to: Home, Menu, Settings, Apps, All Apps, Calendar Storage. Clear Data in Calendar Storage. This should erase the Exchange Calendar from your phone.  Weather reappeared.
But there's more.  It quit again.  Seems to be some conflict between the exchange calendar and the pop calendar.   Deleted the.calendar memory and settings again, Disabled the pop calendar, deleted and recreated the exchange calendar.  Now its stable.


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Is is possible to install a new CM version and a custom kernel in one go?
Currently my workflow to update to a new CM nightly and reinstall my custom kernel is this:

Install the CM update using the CM updater
Boot into recovery manually and install the zip file containing the kernel.

I wonder if there's a way to do this in one go.

This is indeed possible by downloading the ZIP file for the new version (e.g. using the CM updater without installing it after downloading it).
Afterwards the device needs to be rebooted into Recovery. The CM update zip can be found in the cmupdater folder on the sd card (when downloaded using the updater) and installed using the "install zip" option (in CWM, might be named differently in TWRP).
When the CM zip is installed, the kernel zip can be installed using the same method.
While a data wipe is usually not necessary, it is a good idea to wipe both cache and dalvik cache before rebooting.


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How to use diffrent modes at same time on a phone for different callers
For two different callers call on a phone, Is it possible that phone is on vibrate mode for one caller and on ring mode for different user?
My question is in terms of making an application. Is it possible for two different caller when they call at same time on an phone for one the phone is on vibrate mode and for other it will be on ringing mode. Like what i am thinking is to start a service that run in background, So when a call is coming from a particular number it will switch it to vibrate and for different no it will switch to vibrate.
But again the thing is service can listen only one number at the time. So the phone can either work on Vibrate or its in ring. Can it be possible that two mode run simultaneously for two different number?
IF so then hows it possible?

By default you can set different ringtones for each contact by hitting the menu button form the contact window and choosing options.  To add vibration into that mix you can use an app called WhoIsIt, that among other things lets you set different vibration patterns for each contact.
Another way is suggested in this answer.
A more powerful but complicated way to get this done would be to set up different profiles for each caller in an app called Tasker.

No, you cannot set a contact with vibrate for their ringtone. The vibrate mode is "system wide" when enabling the mode. You can, however, set a different audio ringtone for different contacts.


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How to view animated GIFs in Android?
Is there a way to view animated GIFs on an Android device?  I searched the Market without success.

I would suggest trying to open them with the browser application using a file manager. Install a file manager that lets you choose "Run with..."

A Google search shows me a lot of people have this question...looks like it's still an issue.
Although one post here says Image Viewer (with animation) v1.0 from Androlib.com helped (I have not tried it).

I was hoping to avoid having to buy something, especially since my phone is caught in a sign in loop with my gmail account... http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Android+Market/thread?tid=3338af2b5afcbe7a&hl=en

Sign in loop sounds like a very good question of its own...

You're right.  It would have been, but I managed to fix it.  What's the etiquette for answering your own question?

Feel free to just ask then answer.

I use QuickPic and it has a rating of 4.7.

The Android browser will, but the image would have to be online somewhere. There's no way that I've found to open a local file in the browser. I suppose you could create an HTML file with the image and view it that way, but it seems a lot of hassle for little reward.

Animated gif's don't work in the browser of Android 2.0.  I guess I should have been more specific about what version I was using.

Well, there are alternative browsers you might try. I'm not currently using any of them, so I can't speak to how they handle animated GIFs.

Navigating to the folder the gif file(s) are in with another browser besides the stock Android browser works for me.
E.G.: if your gifs are in the Downloads folder, Open Firefox, go to address bar, type in: /storage/emulated/0/Download (it may auto-complete for you). You should get a basic Index of: ... page from which you can click on the name of the gif.
Tested with Firefox 21.0 and Chrome 27.0.1453.90 on a Nexus 4.
Both browsers accepted /storage/emulated/0/Downloads, but Chrome gave an Access Denied error on the shorter path /storage/emulated/0.
I recommend making a bookmark of the page, for easier access in future.

You can view them in Firefox by typing in the gif folders destination.
file:///mnt/sdcard/(name of gif folder)/
It'll bring up the items in that folder as a list. Bookmark the page and store all your gifs in that folder. Firefox is the fastest gif player (that I know of).

You can use ES File Explorer. It provides a feature called ES Image Viewer which can load any GIF image, including animated GIFs.
Where to find it:

"ES Image Browser" is the only one in the above list that plays animated GIFs (I also have jrummy's Root Browser installed).

it can show any .gif image you want. Vote up my answer if that helped

Navigate to the location where the gif files are in Astro and open using Astro File manager.
Tried on Jelly Beans.

I had this issue and couldnt find a quick fix in google. Played around and found that Andriod compresses images when sending MMS, so it breaks the GIF. But, if your GIF is under about 1MB, it will send. Iphone will auto play, andriod you have to click. the biggest one i tested was 666KB.
Your welcome internet

Why don't you try Animated Gif Player?

The only app I've got that is able to run .gif files is Fast Image Viewer Free.


text:
Quickly input frequent used phrase by choose-and-paste
Is there any application that can enhance the clipboard, so that I can quickly input some frequent used phrase by choose-and-paste?
Use case:
I need to input my email address to a field in an application. I recall my frequent used phrases list (by some kind of operation), choose my email address, then it is pasted into the field.

Both SmartClipboard and Quickcopy fits me. SmartClipboard can paste phone number or email address chose from my contacts as well. But its ad is annoying, it's too close to the buttons I often press the ad by mistake. So I finally choose Quickcopy.

use NATIVE CLIPBOARD., it is the best to copy and paste, TEMPLATE option
u can use it in SMS, WHATSAPP, TEST Editors.,

Personally, I use Quickcopy - It may be as close as you will get to your ideal. The only part it will not do is automatically paste into the field you want it to, but it does provide quick access.

I'm the creator of Clipper, a free clipboard manager app. In addition to the clipboard history feature, you can also store snippets, which is what you're looking for.

You could try Smart Clipboard: http://www.appbrain.com/app/smart-clipboard/net.xdevelop.cp it claims to do just what you are asking.
Personally I use Uber Keyboard: http://www.appbrain.com/app/uber-keyboard-%28text-voice%29/com.pwnwithyourphone.talktomekbd It give you suggestions while you type which I usually ignore but it also let's you set custom mappings.  So I set it up so the 1st two letters of my email are mapped to my full email address so when I type in mw it shows my full email as a suggestion so I can insert it without having to open another app.  I've set a bunch of other custom mappins as well for commonly entered things.

try
clipNote


text:
Is there a way to mount a Windows shared drive so I can access those files on my phone?
I have a shared network drive full of files I want to access from my phone over wifi.
Is there a easy way to mount it on my phone?
I have a rooted Motorola Milestone.

ASTRO File Manager by Metago available from Google Play Store has an SMB plugin (ASTRO SMB Module) that serves your needs.

You may give SMB File Sharing a try.
Just klick the image or scan the code.

just curious, why did you not just give the url?

@Louis the QR code is link-clickable

Exactly, i linked the QR code to a description on androidpit. But so you won't have to type the Name of the app to search it in the market, just scan it with ixmat, or whatever barcode scanner you like and you are qucikly able to install the wanted application.

You can use PaderSyncFM from the dev's site
It supports FTP, SFTP, SMB and WebDAV...


text:
How would I use Tasker to boot my PC when I get home?
I have an Android phone running the Tasker app. I have a home computer running Windows 7 as well. Is there any way I can have Tasker detect that I've arrived at home, and send a "Wake On LAN" packet to the computer somehow? What configuration do I need to do on Tasker and on the PC itself to support this scenario?

You could check out this wake on LAN plugin for Tasker / Locale. (Haven't tried it - would be interested to hear how you get on if you give it a go)

Downloading it now;  will try it when I get home today.

@GWLlosa did you try it out?

Yes, but it was kind of hit-or-miss.  Mostly cause it turned out my locale itself on that phone was hit or miss;  Samsung Galaxy S had GPS issues.

Not using tasker, but the following may also work:
http://lifehacker.com/#!5796450/automatically-turn-on-your-pc-over-wi+fi-with-pcautowaker-on-android


text:
How can I replace HTC Sense?
I saw not using HTC Sense as a power-saving tip on another question, but I just wanted to know what the easiest way to replace HTC Sense is and what it requires me to do?
Do I lose all my widgets too or will it mostly change the way my Home screen looks?
Edit: I don't need HTC Sense to disappear completely from my phone or need to root it. I'm just curious how I would go about replacing HTC Sense with another application launcher.

To replace HTC Sense completely you will have to root your phone and replace the ROM completely. Please see this post for more information: How do I root my Android device?
If on the other hand you're looking at replacing your homescreen/launcher then there are plenty of options.

LauncherPro
ADW.Launcher
HelixLauncher
plenty more...

I personally have LauncherPro and have upgraded to the Plus version. The Plus version has 90% of the widgets Sense UI has but is in my opinion far quicker, more stable and has way more features.
NB: I don't believe any of these Launchers allow you to utilise the widgets from Sense UI.
EDIT: Just to answer your comment. LauncherPro is an app you can download and install from the Android Market. Once installed clicking the Home button will prompt you to select which launcher you'd like to use (either LauncherPro or Sense UI). All you would do from there is check the "Default" checkbox and select LauncherPro.

I guess I was more looking into how do you effectively replace HTC Sense with for example LauncherPro. How does it work? But +1 anyway for the effort!

@Ivo Sorry about that... forgot about that bit. Please see my edited answer.

Essentially those are what we call "home" replacements.  You have the stock android home, or HTC's custom Sense home (or [insert manufacturer's custom home here]) that come with your device. But you can go on the market and download another one like LauncherPro or Helixlauncher or ADW launcher.
Usually people use these for additional features the stock home doesn't have, such as more screens, more icons on the screens or app drawer, or advanced memory management, special widgets, etc. (LauncherPro).


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Email app allows designation of priority and request for receipt
I am currently using K-9 Mail on my Samsung Vibrant (Galaxy S) and I use squirrel mail on my computer.  When using SquirrelMail I can designate a priority for outgoing emails (low, normal, high) as well as request delivery and read receipts. Is there an app that allows me to set these designations/requests?

I don't know of any apps off of the top of my head. There is Issue #4664 in Google's Android code to add that feature to the base Gmail application. (I voted for it, but it hasn't been reviewed yet.)


text:
Can I manually rotate my phone while auto-rotation is disabled?
Android has a nifty feature to disable auto-rotation... Is there some sort of gesture or key combination to rotate your screen? (Say I am in a browser and want to rotate). The idea is to be on auto-rotate = off (mostly desired) and manually change the orientation when needed without exiting the application (preferably).

I use Quick Settings and there's an option to toggle auto-rotate.  I have it so the shortcut to Quick Settings lives in my Notification bar so to toggle it requires a swipe, two taps and the back button to toggle it and get back to the app I was in.
If you wanted to reduce this down to tap home, toggle, tap return if you use QuickDesk which lets you put widgets on it's popup launcher.
I'm sure you could probably set it up as a sortcut in Gesture Launcher but I never had any luck with that app.  All it does is force close for me.
Edit:  Sorry, misread you question.  I don't know of any app that does that and I looked around but came up empty.  Personally, that would actually be the ideal behavior of the screen orientation and while I'd have no idea how to make it, it can't be that hard.  I'd recommend asking around at the XDA forum.  Hopefully someone there may know or maybe one of the devs there will make an app to do it.

Yea toggling manual/auto is fine. I just want to change the orientation. In other words if I am in manual mode and in portrait and I need to go to landscape (and stick there).

Ohhh, now I understand.  That would actually be very cool.  I'm not aware of anything and I couldn't find anything.  I'm no dev but it seems to me it couldn't be that hard to write app to do this.  You may want to start asking around in the xda forums and maybe someone will make it.

@DmitriyLikhten If it can be of some help, I can sort of do this with my phone. If I disable auto-rotation and slide the physical keyboard out, it's set to landscape, and when I slide it back in, it's set to portrait. It even forces the lock screen to have a landscape display, which it normally doesn't, stretching the wallpaper. I have a Samsung Galaxy Q (SGH-T589W), running 2.3.6 Gingerbread.

You can use Tap'n'Turn. It shows a small arrow on the screen when it senses that the orientation changes. Pressing it will rotate the screen even when auto-rotation is off.

Instead of rotating the screen right away, it displays an icon which allows you explicitly adjust the orientation

It can also be found on F-Droid (where it is written with spaces: Tap 'n' Turn).

Looks like it's been removed from Play store. Downloaded from F-Droid and it's working nicely so far.

UPDATE: As of Jan 2022, the developer of GMD GestureControl tool removed the app from Play store. Thanks @AndrewT. for the tip.
I don't use Android anymore, so answer below stays the same for history purposes.
* * * * *
I don't know any way to do it by system tools.
However, I know couple of apps, which will let you complete this task.
You need root access.
Here is what I have: Ultimate Rotation Control and GMD GestureControl Lite.
GestureControl lets you tight almost anything to any gesture.
And URC has an ability to share switches of orientations of screen as "Actions".
So you're going to GMD and make new gesture and tie it to "Action" — any desired orientation from URC.
P.S. You need root to use GMD because, AFAIK Android has no another way to set system-wide gestures.

Looks like GMD GestureControl Lite is not on Play Store anymore.

@AndrewT., you're right. My search reveals that the developer decided to remove it alongside with all other applications, because they moved on. More info on XDA: https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/app-4-5-6-7-gmd-gesturecontrol-root.1535740/post-84405019

Rotation Quick Setting (website, Play Store, GitLab) works well and is GPL with source code on GitLab.

works even of the gyro sensor is dead

This answer is really underrated!

Currently it isn't updated enough for Google Play to let you install it on Android 12, but with some insisting the apk worked for me. Exactly what I was looking for!

Since you've said toggling auto is fine, you can just use the quick settings pull-down in Jelly Bean and later. Hold the phone in the orientation you want, then pull down the settings tray, and turn auto-rotate back on. When it's rotated, turn it off again right away.
You can even use it on phones that don't have the stock settings tray, if they have a replacement. Samsung phones are an example of this: instead of two trays, they have one notification panel with "quick access settings" at the top. You can configure which settings are shown, and auto rotate is one of the options.

You can do this with Tasker. Here's a small tutorial
In your profiles screen, click the + button and select application.  In the following screen that shows with the list of your installed apps, choose the app that you would wish to turn the Orientation lock to  off when opened.
Go back and you will be asked to create a new task. Create one and add the action Display Rotation and set it to on.
Now go back and long press on the task you created and click 'Add exit task' do the same thing as you did before but instead of setting it as on, set it to off.
So now, whenever you open the app that you've chosen (Browser), you can switch to landscape mode and at other times stay locked with whichever orientation you leave the app with.

I don't think so. If your auto-rotation is off, only the application which you are running can force the screen to rotate programmatically. You can do this with code but only for your application not for others.
One good example is YouTube, if you start YouTube in portrait mode and even if your auto-rotate option is disabled, you can click on a button to watch the video on landscape mode.

I think in Android 11 you can do that. When you rotate your phone, a small icon will show up. You can click it to rotate your screen.

No, this is not a standard feature of Android 11. Possibly customization by the manufacturer. Would help if the manufacturer/device model is mentioned...

Actually, in my Vivo Iqoo 7, near the home button, there used to be a small rotation arrow pop-up when I rotate my phone after disabling auto-rotation. After the update, it disappeared.


text:
Do you still see ads even if your phone is offline?
An uncle of mine refuses to use the free version of Astro File Manager, because he dislikes ads.
I told him to just leave his 3G off (he only uses it on demand anyway) and he shouldn't see them anyway, as my expectation was that they couldn't be downloaded.
But is this really true? I tried it with Angry Birds and after turning off 3G, I no longer saw any ads, but is this possible?

Most ads require internet access.  If you remove the internet access, then it shouldn't load the ads (unless they are somehow cached?).
If he really, really, really wants to get rid of ads all together, you can install the AdFree app on rooted phones.  It will remove ads from the browser, from apps, etc.  Anything that is in its blacklist will refuse to load.
However, developers do try to make a living and often provide their apps for free at the cost of a little advertising.  You may also want to try and explain this to him and if he really likes the app he can support the developer further by purchasing the full (ad free) version.  No money, no developers.

DroidWall is another solution.

He was actually willing to just pay for it, but the Market doesn't actually make it easy to pay in some countries ;-)

@ivo: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/216/alternative-android-app-markets

I expect that this is going to depend on the ad network. What you've seen apparently works on AdMob, but as to whether other ad networks will require a connection or will display cached ads, I couldn't say.
By the way, Astro File Manager Pro (no ads) is only $3.99.


text:
Anyone knows of way to compare your mobile with a 'standard' installation set?
I have a Samsung Galaxy S mobile phone, running Android 2.1, and am very pleased with it (can't compare though, since it's my first device with Android).
When I had some problem with the installed Facebook application, and got some answers here fro the site, it seemed that I was using a 'Facebook S!' application and not the 'standard' Facebook for Android.
I was just wondering just now: is there a way to compare an Android on your device with a standard installation ? I , for one , would like know that applications have been written by my mobile manufacturor and my mobile operator, and which are standard.

It's not an absolute answer, but if you go into Settings, Applications, Manage Applications. Then press Menu, select Filter, and make sure that Third-party is selected. Anything in that list didn't get onto your phone as part of the standard Android install. They've either been added by your phone manufacturer, your phone network, or yourself.
Unfortunately some standard Android apps show up in that list, if you've updated them from the market (like Google Maps) and a lot of manufacturer added apps don't show up.
I've got a Galaxy S too, but had a HTC Magic running stock Android before. Apps that I've spotted as obviously being modified/added by Samsung are the Music Player app, Camera app, Contacts App, Clock app, Daily Briefing, FM Radio, Video PlayerMemo, Mini Diary, My Files, Samsung Apps (and everything listed in there), Social hub, Voice Recorder, Task Manager. Also a lot of the "Look and feel" of the phone, including the way the 7 home screens, and the Applications screens work has been added as part of Samsung's Touch Wiz interface.
TL;DR Galaxy S has a lot of custom apps, easiest way to compare is probably actually to find someone with a stock phone (like a Nexus One) and directly compare.


text:
Will my alarm still go off if my phone is on airplane mode?
I'm trying to save battery but I need my alarm in the morning. Will it still go off if on airplane mode?
p.s. I have an HTC Inspire.

If you have an alarm app from the Amazon Appstore, you might have the opposite problem -- you might not be able to shut it off.  I had Gentle Alarm and the alarm service ran fine, but to shut it off it opened the app which attempted a DRM check.  The check failed due to no internet and the app closed, leaving the alarm running :P

Yes. Airplane mode (flight mode) only disables your phone's signal transmitting functions, not the functions that don't require a signal to function.
Your alarm will still work.

As @Jasir says. Your alarm will still work in Airplane mode.
Be careful as there is another setting on your phone.
Clock > Alarms > Menu > Settings > 'Alarm in silent mode'
You will need this ticked if you put your phone in silent (saving more battery) and still want the alarm to go off!

Do a quick, simple test on your phone (that's what I did):
Put your phone on airplane mode, then set an alarm for 1 (one) minute into the future.  If done correctly, your alarm should sound off within 1 minute.  Then you know it works!

Alarm clock requires no Internet connection.
So yes, alarm is still on with airplane/flight mode enabled

Actually your phone time needs to occasionally access the network's time server to stay synced and that might affect your alarm.  I didnt wake up today because i set an alarm for 3 hrs, set airplane mode, and it never rang, but i can't really prove this now.

Your phone clock shouldn't go that wrong overnight: even without updates, it should be accurate to a few seconds per year. Most likely something else went wrong with your alarm.


text:
How can I retrieve data from an Epic 4G without a working screen?
My epic 4g served me well for 10 months before the screen died out on me. I bought a new one and would like to transfer data from my old phone to my new phone, however, it seems impossible when the old phone has no screen to work with.
Any suggestions on how to retrieve this data and get it on a computer?

What OS version?  Are you rooted?  Did you have USB Debugging enabled?

I believe I had usb debugging enabled. I am not rooted and I have the 2.2.1 os.

onik's right that ADB is your best bet for retrieving your apps, data, etc.  But to get it all, you need to be rooted.  XDA has an extremely simple guide for rooting that fortunately doesn't require the use of the screen, it just requires USB Debugging.
Once you root and start adb shell, try entering su before anything else.  If the prompt changes from $ to # then you have root privileges.  If it fails, adb probably gained root privileges automatically.  Now you can access the full contents of the data partition and other areas normally off-limits.

If you have debugging enabled, you can use adb to pull files from the phone. If you can't remember the names of the files, you can use adb shell to enter the phone's shell and then browse the filesystem with normal UNIX commands, such as ls, cd dir, cd ..etc. Once you have a list of files to copy, use adb pull /sdcard/path/to/file.ext localpath/file.ext.
If you prefer to use a graphic interface, install the full SDK and Eclipse, then use the DDMS view to browse and copy files.


text:
Is there a way to list the local dns cache?
I would like to get a list of my current cache on my phone, what is the command to issue in order to retrieve that list ?
I would like to get a command and not an app that does that, since i want to incorporate that command into a script that i am write.
Thanks.

In Android, the DNS Cache is not on the OS level (Linux), but on the Java level (managed by java.net.InetAddress). Therefore, it is not possible to list the cache contents from the shell, however you can access it from the Java code.
Please see Java DNS cache viewer question on StackOverflow, one of the answers has a sample Java code that prints the positive and negative DNS cache. You can incorporate that code into whatever solution you're building.


text:
Contact images cropped and downsampled when syncing with google contacts
When Syncing with google contacts the photos I chose for my contacts are cropped to a square, and are downsampled to a very low resolution.
Is there a way to sync my phone contacts (without facebook), and keep the hi-res photos?

I've found that contact picture quality varies widely with the dialer/contact app used. Consider trying a replacement like GO Contacts EX or any of the other replacements in the market.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I tried GO Contact EX and also other dialer, but the problem remains - once my contacts are synced with google contacts, the resolution drops and the image crops :(


text:
How can I sync an Exchange 2003 inbox to an Android 4.x device?
I have ICS 4.x and I'm trying to get the default email client to connect to a MS Small Business Server 2003.
The client will sync all folders but Inbox. I get the error message "Couldn't Open connection to Server". I'm able to send emails, any clues?

I am not sure why it is failing for you, but I can confirm that it is not a problem with Exchange 2003 specifically; we use that where I work, and I have had no users call with sync issues on ICS... I'm only aware of 2 though, so it's not a large number of data points.

I was just suffering from the same issue with an Exchange 2010 server. The problem was server-side not client-side.
Upon investigating the event log for the Exchange role, I noticed the following error entry:

Exchange ActiveSync verfügt nicht über ausreichende Berechtigungen zum Erstellen des Containers "CN=Oliver Salzburg,OU=..." unter dem Active Directory-Benutzer "Active Directory operation failed on server.something.de. This error is not retriable. Additional information: Zugriff verweigert.
Active directory response: 00000005: SecErr: DSID-031521D0, problem 4003 (INSUFF_ACCESS_RIGHTS), data 0
".
Stellen Sie sicher, dass der Benutzer über geerbte Berechtigungen verfügt, die 'domain\Exchange Servers' erteilt wurden, um für Objekte vom Typ "msExchangeActiveSyncDevices" die Befehle 'Inhalte auflisten', 'Untergeordnetes Objekt erstellen' und 'Untergeordnetes Objekt löschen' auszuführen, und dass der Benutzer über keine verweigerten Berechtigungen verfügt, die diese Vorgänge blockieren.
Details:%3

English Version

Exchange ActiveSync doesn't have sufficient permissions to create the "CN=,OU=,DC=thenet,DC=gen,DC=nz" container under Active Directory user "Active Directory operation failed on .thenet.gen.nz. This error is not retriable. Additional information: Access is denied.
Active directory response: 00000005: SecErr: DSID-031521D0, problem 4003 (INSUFF_ACCESS_RIGHTS), data 0
".
Make sure the user has inherited permission granted to domain\Exchange Servers to allow List, Create child, Delete child of object type "msExchangeActiveSyncDevices" and doesn't have any deny permissions that block such operations.

It boils down to a permissions issue for the Exchange server. It isn't allowed to change the ActiveSync settings in the Active Directory.
To resolve this, follow these steps:

Open Active Directory Users and Computers.
Click View and then check Advanced Features.
Navigate to the user that is causing the issue (the location is noted in the event log entry) and open the Properties for the user.
Go to the Security tab and click Advanced.
Check the checkbox Include inheritable permissions and click OK.


text:
Hebrew vowels not rendering correctly on web page.
Sample web page:  http://hebrewresources.com/html5problems/buttonText.html
The letters are okay but the vowels (niqudot) under them are not aligned properly at all.
Happens in both Firefox and the default browser on my EVO running Android 2.3.5.
Sample page looks fine on Firefox for Windows and iPhone browser.

Android doesn't fully support Hebrew, to my knowledge. Is this bug similar to what you're seeing?

Sounds about the same, thanks. I thought maybe it was a browser problem; that maybe a different browser might avoid the problem.


text:
Carbon ROM update fails: Failed to setup flash. Clean /cache and retry
I try to update to the latest Carbon ROM. The check is successful, but the flash fails with "Failed to setup flash. Clean /cache and retry."

I already went to Settings > System > System Updates > Settings (right-top corner) > Clean update files [Delete existing update files to force downloading full update]
and tried the update again without success. Happens the first time for me, last update was just recently on 8. May without problems.
I also just tried going in Recovery Mode > Team Win Recovery Project > Wipe > Advanced Wipe > select Cache > Wipe. But the problem still remains after the reboot.

Did you try cleaning cache from the recovery?

I just tried it. Went in Recovery  Mode > Team Win Recovery Project > Wipe > Advanced Wipe > select Cache > Wipe. But the problem remains after the reboot.


text:
Play notification alert sound when a message is still open
I recently switched to an Evo from an old flip phone.  My only problem so far has been this:
When I finish sending a message, I'm used to just sending a message and putting my phone down.  I don't lock the phone or exit the messaging application.  As a result, if I receive a reply from that person before the phone automatically locks itself, it will not play the text received notification.  This has caused me to miss a few texts completely and is rather irritating.  Is there any way that I can set the messaging app to play the notification sound even when it's for a conversation that's currently on the screen?

Have you tried using an alternative SMS app?  Handcent is very popular.  It has always notified me of a new SMS even with the message still open.
Edit: If you don't want to switch SMS apps, you can also use SMS Popup.

@Dave I've been using it for the past year or so, I love it :)


text:
Why is it that Android still can't be installed as regular OS?
Are there any technical or others reasons why Android is still a firmware and not an OS which can be just installed without a lot of hassle?
Why there is no universal image which could detect appropriate drivers (kernel modules), partition NAND in some standard way and configure boot loader to boot updated OS version?
What stops Google from making a real (less firmware-like) OS (an OS for small ARM, x86 etc. devices)?

It's worth noting that this isn't exclusive to Android, other OS's that focus on ARM devices (even Microsoft's Windows 8 RT) can't just be installed on any other ARM machine, but are treated more like firmware.

It's the header files:  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/29/google_android_and_the_linux_headers/

Also see this: https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/205072/bootloader-bios-flashing-rom-and-correlated-risks-why-android-devices-are-more

What stops Google from making a real OS (an OS for small ARM, x86 etc devices)?

It is a "real" OS.

Why there is no universal image which could detect appropriate drivers

How do you detect drivers that don't exist?  Someone has to write them.  Unlike PCs, phone hardware varies wildly, largely because it isn't feasible for end users to construct their own from parts and size constraints.  Customized parts instead of interchangeable ones and special chipsets mean very specific drivers are needed, and an OS can't just ship default ones.  Imagine the bloat as well — someone with a cheap HTC phone with 20 MB for apps doesn't have room to host drivers they don't need.

and configure boot loader to boot updated OS version

Bootloaders also vary wildly between devices; you'd have to get all the manufacturers on board in order to use a single one, and manufacturers are unlikely to want to give up their power in that area.

… but they could make distribution with very modular kernel and then install just needed stuff. PC hardware also varies from pentium with buggy CMD640 IDE to Core i7 with usb3. They could make installer which reads VendorISs:DeviceIDs from existing OS on device and then just compiles kernel on QEMu and then just transferes it to device with new stuff. I guess you right even if it's possible for a person to just use menuconfig to make good enough kernel for specific device, that is hardly can be made automatically by some script.

@OleksandrBolotov: Bear in mind that the Linux kernel also contains a large number of open source driver implementations that are compiled when you run a build. The vast majority of the drivers used by mobile devices are proprietary, so even although you certainly can build Android from source for any device given enough time, you'd have to implement all the drivers. In addition, Google may run afoul of intellectual property agreements if they did this themselves (I don't know for certain but it may certainly be in their contracts with various manufacturers).

@OleksandrBolotov I certainly agree that they could do something to mitigate the issues, but we can only assume that the issues are why they don't ;).  I think speculating further would be beyond our scope.

Yes, tl;dr it's a driver issue. Someone has to make the drivers.

By design, or the perfect scenario per se, the kernel would contain all the drivers, while the Android OS is universal, both could be flashed separately, or flashed together in a bundle as stock firmware (which we see a lot today). If the kernel was separated from OS, could we be able to flash kernel-less AOSP directly onto any device that has its manufacturer kernel flashed first? Maybe this already exists? Idk

In order to provide what you seem to be asking for, an additional layer (or a more robust)of abstraction would have to be added to the operating system so that it would be less tightly coupled to the hardware. Adding this would require more memory and consume more CPU cycles on a platform that has little of either to spare.

Google's ongoing lawsuit with Oracle!
Google does have a plan for bringing Android to PC's - but it's not quite what you are envisioning: Google wants to add the Android execution environment to Chrome.  Android could -with a lot of work - by made to be installable on PC's, but bringing it to Chrome instead means it could be easily deployed to 25% of all computers immediately (25% being Chrome's ~ market share).
If you don't believe me, look at the smoking gun e-mail that Google is currently fighting to keep out of lawsuit - it refers to Google needing Java for Chrome.
I'm not suggesting that Google is going to suddenly drop Java if they lose the lawsuit - they are way too far committed to Java to do that - but they would like to at least know what the terms of using Java are going to be before they take a step that would significantly increase their dependence on it.

Google just suffers from bad decisions made long time ago by Android Inc. That was such a horrible idea to use Java for app development on NEW OS. Wasn't it obvious enough that Java is just a proprietary trap and they even don't need it to make non-java VM bytecode for Dalvik. I guess they just have traitors in management that explains everything.

It would seem that adding the Android execution environment to Chrome might not be that hard if this is anything to go by...  http://bluestacks.com/ - Android apps running on a Windows desktop!

Do you have any evidence for all of this, or are you just speculating wildly?

Certainly, much has changed since I wrote this answer.  Most importantly was Pachai replacing Rubin and associated re-org at Google.  All the signs seemed to change after that, and IO13 was much different than IO12: clearly they are now pushing Chrome as a mobile platform in-of-itself, so I no longer believe they will bring Android to Chrome.

Other people than Google are working on porting it to the x86 platform already. If you check out the Android-x86 Project you can see various builds available albeit for a limited number of hardware devices. I tried to download a couple of the images and get them running in VirtualBox on my computer (CrunchBang Linux based on Debian on Dell Latitude D520) but couldn't get it to load. You might be able to, though. GL!


text:
Minimal set of .apk files to enable Google Play
I have some Android Froyo device not blessed by Google, so it doesn't have Google Play/Market or any of GAPPS by default and device maker won't make any firmware updates.
Is it even possible now to make  Google Play/Market work with Android Froyo?
What is the minimal set of  .apk, framework and lib files should I put in pertinent folders to enable Google Play on my Froyo device?

I don't want to put all of gapps from goo.im:

I want to conserve some space on device (small built-in SD CARD),
I think that some of them may be malicious (Virustotal detects EnhancedGoogleSearchProvider.apk as Android/GoManag.A)
I believe that there is some resonable minimum that works anyway

Do you have root? A custom recovery? If so, just flashing the gapps package from goo.im/gapps should do it.

@ChinmayKanchi virustotal says that gapps from goo.im contain malicious Android/GoManag.A : http://goo.gl/5ysFP | http://goo.gl/APSzg

That should not be possible unless goo.im has been compromised. Goo.im is the recommended source for Google Apps for Android, even the CyanogenMod team recommends it. Personally, I would guess that it's a false positive, but how much to trust the word of a random guy on the internet is up to you ;).

PS: What you want is one of the Froyo versions, depending on your device's resolution (white background in the version information column). VirusTotal says those files are clean. Also, I scanned the "passion" files you've linked to. They're clean too, according to VirusTotal. Did you scan the URL or did you download, then scan?

I downloaded and then scanned archives from goo.im

Check the "Barebones" page on the CyanogenMod wiki.
It lists which apks are required for what. So instead of listing minimum apk list, you can just select the required apps for Play. By the way Google Play, Market or Vending are the same things. At a minimum you will will need Vending.apk and MarketUpdater.apk, and possibly GoogleServicesFramework.apk

Nice to see there's something to back up my above reasoning.  Looking at the article, it seems that maps will also be needed on Froyo or you'll be locked out of apps with country restrictions.

In addition to  Chinmay Kanchi's comment, if you don't have a custom recovery to flash it, it's also possible to extract the .APKs from the gapps package (in /system/app) and install them on their own to get the store running.  I did this on my Archos 32 (which also runs froyo) and it worked flawlessly without any root needed.
Unfortunately, I did this almost 2 years ago and I do not remember which exact APKs were needed for just the market nor what order I needed to install them in.  Vending.apk is the store itself.  I think I might have needed to install GoogleServicesFramework.apk before that.  MarketUpdater.apk might also be needed, but I think installed after vending.  I bumbled through the process via trial and error, so doing things in the wrong order shouldn't harm anything (I remember that the install would just error out on a wrong-order attempt) and you can just try again.

While the GServices are needed for sure, the MarketUpdater is only needed if you want the Market/Playstore app itself to be kept up-to-date AFAIK. To my knowledge, that's the service checking for updates of the Playstore app itself, and applying them in the background without user interaction -- nothing else.


text:
How can I install APK file on Bluestacks app player?
I have created an Android application using Eclipse, and now I'd like to install the APK on Bluestacks which is running on Windows 7. How can I install an APK on the Bluestacks player?

https://discussions.apple.com/message/24361761#24361761

I just copied my APK file into the Apps folder, which is created by default in the Libraries folder at the time of BlueStacks installation. Then I just double clicked on the APK file to install it to the App Player. Now I can see the application icon on the home screen of the App Player and I am able to run it from there.

Save as app name.apk and right click on that file and open with HD-apk handler.exe which is located in C:\Program Files (x86)\BlueStacks.

I logged in just to upvote you. Good and simple solution.

The correct name is HD-ApkHandler.exe. Also Bluestacks installs to C:\Program Files on 64-bit systems.

To install an app from your pc, just double click on its apk file; it doesn't matter in which folder it is.

Wow... this should be the answer. Worked immediately.

its quite simple......
you need BlueStacks app player for this
just download the .apk file of whichever app you wish to  install.
and then open the downloaded .apk file with ""APK handler"" of BlueStacks(the .exe file of the apk handler is present in the root directory of BlueStacks)


text:
How can I completely reset android samsung galaxy s 4g?
My phone has gotten extremely slow, and the GPS no longer seems to function which is the main reason I got the phone.
My phone is a Samsung Galaxy S 4G from T-Mobile.
Is it possible to reset it completely? I read several reset guides, and they said to hold the volume down + power and volume up + power but neither of those worked.
Thank you

I don't have that particular model, but every Android phone I've owned has had a "Factory Data Reset" option.  On my Nexus S, it's under Settings/Privacy.


text:
How can I record touches?
Is there an existing app I can install that will record my touch interactions in the background?  I just saw this and it made me want to play around with my touch data to see what it looked like.  Didn't turn up any likely candidates here or in the Market.  Google seemed to indicate that it is certainly doable if you write your own foreground app (which I have no interest in doing because I want to record my touches in the entire system), and that it might be possible using a custom-developed background app, which might be a fun project but I'd rather install an existing app if possible.

if there is anything like that I'm pretty sure it would require at least rooted phone, as it is a security and privacy issue if any application can record touches (e.g. a malicious touch recorder app will be able to record your password that you typed on the on-screen keyboard).

Yeah...  I know what I want it for, but I'm not sure I would trust it if someone else gave it to me anyway...

Related: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/45121/is-there-a-way-to-record-and-playback-a-set-of-touches

In Ice Cream Sandwich, I noticed a few cool features in the Developer options that are related to touches: Go to Settings -> Developer options.  There is the Pointer location option.  This shows an overlay of touch information such as coordinates and drag path.  There is also Show touches, which shows where your touching the screen.  The former might provide you some good information, but doesn't record the data for analysis later.  The latter is more for when you're recording a video so it's clear where the user is touching.

AFAIK, based on the android sandbox security model, you can't track the screen touches when your application is not the active app.
With that said, I have done some work (still in progress) on a PC based application that injects a jar on the device (has to be rooted) and from the PC I can send "touches" to the device, no matter what application is open. But, it is still using android code to send the touch events to the device. There is nothing in there for me to get the touch events from the device unless it is "my application" and i am capturing them as the user touches areas of my app. Once they exit or open another application and my app is not longer "on top", I am no longer capturing the touch events.
As I said, I have done work on a "remote control" type app that runs on the PC, and I have toyed around with using my android device as a "touch pad" to control the mouse on my PC so I have done some research in to what you are talking about, and this was my findings.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2270795
Lol, I'm a little late, but here you go!
The app is RepetiTouch; requires root, but should be compatible from Android 2.3 upwards.

Check out my new app Tap Counter (by DenizenApps). It counts every time you touch your screen.

Does your app only count taps inside of the app or throughout the whole OS?

The whole OS. I'm using the same system overlay as apps like Screen Filter and Volume Control

Check out the Screen Filter app on Market.  Screen Filter lets you overlay the screen with a transparent layer so you can have a dimmer screen.  This doesn't let you record, but I suspect that the same approach they are using to dim the screen could instead be used to capture touch data and record it.  Might be worth looking into developing, depending on why you need such an application.


text:
How can I configure my phone to show random background wallpapers from my pictures galery?
I know how to set a static picture from my photo gallery as a background wallpaper picture. However, I would like to see a new picture every time I turn the screen on. Is there a way to configure my Android smartphone to do this? Or maybe some app that does something like this?
I'm using a Samsung Galaxy 551, with Android 2.2 (Froyo).

You could try an app like WallSwitch, which can be set to change your wallpaper every time you unlock the device or on a timer. I don't know that there's a way to tell it to pull from "the gallery" in general, but you can just specify that you want to pull from the folders your gallery images are in (works out effectively the same).


text:
Wi-Fi icon next to apps in android market
In Android market some app have a Wi-Fi icon next to them.
Some examples are Cordy, Fieldrunners HD, Flight Control, Where's My Water?, Wind-up Knight, World of Goo.
What dose it mean that these apps have this icon next to them?
I'm using Galaxy Nexus.

It means that a Wi-Fi connection is strongly recommended to download them. This is usually because the apps are very large, such as World of Goo which is ~48 MB.
The newest version of the Market (v3.4.4 as of writing) displays a warning that lets you download it anyway, but I think that older versions just wouldn't let you download at all via a cellular connection (not positive on that, but I seem to recall seeing it myself).

It means you can only download those apps when your phone is on a WiFi connection.
If you're on 3G and you attempt to load one of those (I tried Cordy) you'd get the following message:

Download required Wi-Fi This download may be too large to be made over
  a mobile connection. It is likely to remain paused until you are on
  Wi-Fi.


text:
How can I edit a movie with Movie Studio?
Using Movie Studio, how can I edit a video, specifically split it to remove a portion of the video? I've figured out how to apply effects and transitions, but I want to clip a portion. Is it possible?

A quick search brought up this article at http://blog.laptopmag.com/how-to-edit-video-with-movie-studio-on-your-android-tablet.
While I don't have a tablet, I have played with Movie Studio before, and it looks like all you have to do is tap the timeline at the bottom of your clip, and drag the arrows that appear on its edges to trim it. This only trims the edges off, so if you want to take a part out of the middle, I would re-add the clip (so you have two copies of it in your timeline), and then drag the arrows on the ends of the copy so you only have the part you want, without getting rid of the beginning of the clip from the original.


text:
Is it possible to combine address bar and search bar of opera mobile into one
I had been using stock browser all the while. Recently, I found out that opera mobile is much more faster when I double tap to zoom in. I would like to switch my daily use to opera mobile. However, the shortcoming I found out is that, they do not have a single bar for me to search and type address. Is there any workaround or plugin for me to do so?

I don't know of any way to physically combine the two fields. However, the most recent update (11.1) added the following:

One field does it all
You can now type both web addresses
  and search queries in your browser's
  address field. Or, if you prefer, you
  can still use the search field with
  your favorite search engines.

So if you start typing into the address bar, you'll now be given the option to perform a search for whatever you entered. You just tap on the "Search: [text]" item that appears under the address bar:


text:
Why would the Netflix App want to "read sensitive log data" on my device?
I just noticed that that Netflix App wants the "Read Sensitive Log Data" permission to run.

What exactly does this permission allow? (besides the fairly generic/scary sounding description in the market)
Why do you think the Netflix app might need it?

Maybe you should contact the developer and ask them.

Some apps use this to retrieve debug information and send it to the company to help improve the app (eg. Evernote [source]). Couldn't find any information on how Netflix uses the data and can't test but maybe there's a "Send debug information" button or something similar. This, of course, is pure speculation, so you'll have to think "Do I trust this company with my data?"
As to what information is made available by this, you can check this by using aLogcat or the Android SDK and logcat. There's a public Google+ post which describes an example of logcat information.

That Google+ link is dead


text:
How is Anker battery for Android phones?
I've heard people talking about Anker on big forums about Anker battery, basically cell phone batteries and external batteries, and it seems people speak highly about it. So have you have any idea about how it works?

Normally general electronics questions are off-topic, but I think sharptooth's answer saves this.

The question is completely offtopic. The answer could apply to any kind of battery-using device, but is relevant enough for the android devices to afford a +1

I'll assume you actually want to know what ways are there to increase battery capacity of your Android device. There're three approaches to this problem.
Approach one is an internal battery with higher capacity. I don't have any details on whether Anker is worthwhile, but it's capacity for say HTC Desire S is 1600 mAh and standard battery capacity for the same HTC Desire S is 1450 mAh, so that doesn't look like a huge improvement to me - it will be drained in one day of usual use anyway. What is really important is battery reliability - you want a reliable battery with long lifetime (number of charge-discharge cycles and capacity retainment) and good safety so that it doesn't explode in your phone (that actually happens once in a while with cheap batteries) and you have to look for such information elsewhere, not on this site.
Approach two is a spare battery. It's not very convenient - phones are not designed to allow for fast battery swap and phones lose power and their state when a battery is swapped and also charging the spare is a problem, because you either need a charger craddle for that or you use your phone for that and the latter means more battery swapping.
Approach three is an external battery - there's a lot of such stuff, Anker sells that too, they come in a wide range of capacity, some can even be used with netbooks. Basically it's a box with a battery inside and a USB cable. You charge the box either of USB (your computer, laptop, USB hub, phone charger, whatever) or of mains - that depends on the model. Then you can use the box to power any USB device, phone included - the phone will think it is connected to USB and charge through it. This is a rather convenient option - you can temporarily connect your device to the box and charge it fully or partially, you can carry it conveniently in a bag or a pocket and have the device connected to it and use the device at the same time. One big advantage of this approach is that the box can be used with various devices, not a specific model only. One big disadvantage is the thing is relatively expensive. Again you need good reliability, lifetime and safety, you should search for that information elsewhere. Another disadvantage is that the box itself can be slow to charge - its battery capacity is usually rather high and USB doesn't provide lot of power, so charging current will be rather low, this might be important for your convenience.


text:
How to disable SMS preview displayed over a locked screen?
On an Android device (HTC Desire S if that matters) with a locked screen whenever an SMS is received it's preview is displayed over the locked screen. This is super inconvenient - anyone who is nearby can see it without even unlocking the screen.
Is there a way to disable those previews over a locked screen?

Is this a Sense thing or do you mean the status bar notification?

@onik: That's not status bar nofification, that's a huge preview box drawn right over the locked screen.

Ok, so it's a Sense feature. One pretty extreme solution would be to use CyanogenMod, which doesn't include this feature, but you'd also lose the other Sense additions. You can find more info at http://www.cyanogenmod.com

You can do so by going into the Messaging app, and pressing Menu -> Settings -> Uncheck "Received notification (Show  notification in status bar when messages are received)".
But you won't get the notification on status bar as said above.

Just to clarify, this is to be done in the Messaging app.

Edited the answer for clarity at @onik's suggestion.

Go to Settings > Privacy and uncheck Display Message Text.

This seems like the best solution to me.

This is the one it sounds like they where after, As i too was searching for how to stop message text of arrived messages appearing on lock screen for all to read.

If you're not terribly attached to the stock messaging app, install GO SMS PRO to handle your SMSes. It's better looking and infinitely more customisable than the stock app. Handcent SMS is another alternative SMS app.
Once you've installed GO SMS PRO, in the stock messaging app's Settings, uncheck everything. This should prevent double notifications.

Once you've disabled the in-built notification as in Roxan's answer, you could install an alternative SMS notifier app.
I use SMS Popup which still uses the in-built messaging app to handle all of your messaging, but gives a whole set of extra customizations to how you're notified. I have mine currently set to display the name and contact picture of the person that texted over the lock screen, but not show the message until the phone is unlocked.

Sweet! I'll also use this.

The only way in the stock messaging application is to disable SMS notifications completely.
As an alternative, you can install GO SMS. It has the option to disable SMS preview in the notification bar.

If you go to Phone Settings -> Privacy, there is a check box for displaying messages on the lock screen.

Why the downvote? My method doesn't require any additional apps or work.  Just use the setting that is on the phone...