text:
Is it possible to continue upgrading an Android device if the OEM stops supporting it?
Suppose the OEM loses interest in my device; can I still install the stock distro updates when issued by Google? Are there issues with device drivers if I go this route?

Root, install Unofficial Android ROM, Done. They don't lose "interest" they just don't want to spend time and resources on older devices, which they can and will use on newer ones.

@Uri so no issues with drivers? I would have thought that since all devices are different, they might require OEM-supplied drivers.

What kind of phone you have?

@Pitto none yet, thinking of Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.

If on your device you find written somewhere "Samsung" I think you should stop worrying :)
Cyanogenmod guys care about you. U_U

Once a manufacturer abandons supporting the device, your only choice is rooting it, unlocking its bootloader (if possible) and installing custom ROMs.
Google only releases the Android source code into AOSP (Android Open Source Project,) and has no say whether or not the manufacturer or carrier will update a given device.  The only exception is the Nexus line of phones that are supported by Google directly.  As it stands, AOSP cannot be built for any non-Google device without major work.  Even though manufacturers and carriers are required to provide the source code, it is true only for the part of the OS.  They don't have to (and rarely do) provide sources for the proprietary drivers, which are necessary to build a completely working Android version for a given device.  The community developers usually use the drivers from older OS versions, which greatly limits the upgrade potential.  The drivers sometimes are reverse-engineered which gives a greater flexibility to developers.
There also is an issue of locked down bootloaders on most new Android phones and tablets, which limits the extent of the changes a custom ROM can bring.  Most manufacturers and carriers lock bootloaders to prevent people from "bricking" their devices.  There are ways to unlock/bypass such locks for many devices though.
Bottom line is that if you are looking for a device that will be supported the longest - your best choice is a Nexus line.  Otherwise, I suggest looking at various online forums (xda-developers or rootzwiki, for example) to see if there is enough interest in your device from community developers to produce custom ROMs for it.

As Uri Herrera commented, you'll need to root your phone to be able to install custom firmware, and then install a community aftermarket firmware, like CyanogenMod. Most likely the open source community will keep updating the firmware (ROM) even after OEM has lost interest.
How to root: You can refer to a nice guide by LifeHacker - most likely it can be easily done by connecting the device with USB, and using a Windows program called SuperOneClick.
How to install custom firmware: The easiest way is most likely to use the Android program called Rom Manager. It's available from Android Market. The premium version will even notify when your custom ROM gets updates, so it's easy to keep up to date.

Thank you, this was useful. Sorry I can only accept one answer, both are good.

+1 to installing a custom ROM. Got my desire hd in January, was fed up with the bloatware so rooted and installed cyanogenmod around may time. While the manufacturer skins like sense are nice and all, custom roms allow a lot more customisation, andI guarantee I'll be on ics before HTC release an update (if they even do)


text:
What Port Does Android Use For VPN Connections?
I'm trying to set up a VPN so that I can have a connection to my LAN from my phone (HTC Droid Incredible, Stock ROM, Not rooted) wherever I am.
AFAICT, everything is set up correctly.  The Domain Name resolves correctly, I forwarded the ports required by the how-to I was following, yet I still can't connect.
I have no idea what's wrong or how to get to any debug information.  The only thing I can think of that I haven't verified yet is the port, but I couldn't find a way to select one.
What Port Does Android Use For VPN Connections?
P.S.  I would really like to do this without rooting.

If you have access to a computer that

is on the same Wi-Fi network; and
runs Wireshark (http://www.wireshark.org/)

you can probably find out the port that way.

This will also hopefully let you see What's Really Happening. Sniff phone side, sniff LAN side, compare.

If you are trying to VPN from your phone to publicly accessible computer that is also part of your LAN, it really doesn't matter what port the VPN client on your phone uses.

Here are the ports used by VPNs
PPTP
To allow PPTP tunnel maintenance traffic, open TCP 1723.
To allow PPTP tunneled data to pass through router, open Protocol ID 47.

L2TP over IPSec
To allow Internet Key Exchange (IKE), open UDP 500.
To allow IPSec Network Address Translation (NAT-T) open UDP 5500.
To allow L2TP traffic, open UDP 1701.

I don't think so that you need to have to port if you are willing to use a VPN on Android. You simply need to add the server name in the settings which will be given to you by your VPN provider. However, I will advise you to configure the setting again on VPN Android. It will surely work out as one of my friends has also faced such issues while connecting to VPN but he tried the configuration steps and then able to use the VPN service on his Android phone.
Follow these simple steps.
Add a new VPN connection:

Press the Home icon, press Menu, and tap Settings
Tap Wireless & networks
Tap VPN settings
Tap Add VPN
Select the type of VPN to add (PPTP, L2TP, L2TP/IPSec PSK VPN, L2TP/IPsec CRT VPN)
Fill in VPN details such as VPN name, VPN server, etc (the required settings will depend on the type of VPN selected and will be provided to you by your VPN Provider or network admin)
Click Save or Done.

Connecting to the VPN:

Press Home icon, press Menu, and tap Settings
Tap Wireless & networks
Tap VPN settings.
The VPN connections you have added are now listed.
Tap the VPN you wish to connect to.
A dialog box will open asking for your credentials, enter them and touch connect

source: Stack Exchange

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

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

sort: votes


text:
info on firmware upgrade
My Asus Eee transformer just received a firmware update. Where can I go to check what the update included? Asus' website isn't helpful. I'm on 8.6.5.19, and I've already noticed the market place is different, id like to know any other cool features.

I have found this thread on XDA to very helpful.
The entire forum for the Transformer on XDA has a lot of information.

Great thread!  Thanks I found it very interesting.

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


text:
HTC Sense - What Is "Current Weather"?
I think this app is a part of HTC Sense. When i check weather, i get usual report:

But if i swipe down, i get "current" report:

From pictures you can see that reports differ by 2 degrees Celcius, however i once had not only difference in degrees but in day and night i.e usual report showed day while "current" report showed night (or vice versa..? can't recall).
Why there is a difference between both?

The 'Haifa (Current)' display is the weather at the position your phone thinks it is currently located at. In other words, the 'Current' refers to current position. The other 'Haifa' display is the weather at the extra city location that you have set up. The displays show different weather because the specific locations used by your phone within Haifa are presumably different, even though they are both within Haifa.

Mike, i have not set up any other extra city location. How to find out which extra city it shows weather for and how to change it to another extra city?

Boris_yo, You can add, rearrange or delete the extra cities by using the options: Menu >> Add, Menu >> Rearrange or Menu >> Delete. Those options only work on the extra cities, not the current location, so the rearrange would only have meaning if you set up more than one extra city.


text:
Where are the settings for stock swype?
I have a Samsung Galaxy S from Sprint that has Swype pre installed. The latest OS update included some changes to Swype that are making me completely insane. The biggest issue is that it auto-corrects words when I'm finger tapping accurately. So a message to my sister that meant to say "Pfft. Just come." got auto corrected to "Orgy. Just come." I'm totally exasperated!
I can't find Swype settings on my phone. I looked at http://www.swype.com/tips/swype-basics/ but the only thing I get when I longpress the Swype key is the option to toggle between input methods. I can't access any further settings.

Seems "language and keyboard" is "locale and text"

Settings > Language and keyboard > Swype on a Galaxy S2

They're under Settings > Locale and Text > Swype for me.


text:
What is USB debugging? Can I keep it ON forever?
Sometimes I need to transfer some music from my PC to my Galaxy S2 and must always activate USB debugging. Then I think, can I keep it ON forever? I mean, Keep it ON for ever can give me a problem (cost battery?) ? And what's USB debugging?

How does USB debugging affect transferring music? Can't you still select "Select to copy files to/from your computer." from the notification bar?

Enabling USB debugging essentially starts up the adb daemon on your device, which allows it to communicate with adb on another device to enable debugging commands. It's used when developing and debugging applications, and allows you (primarily) to:

Transfer data between a computer and your device (both ways)
Read log data easily from logcat
Debug applications, including breakpoints and heap monitoring
Install and uninstall applications
Access a stripped-down shell on the device, for command-line interaction.

Leaving it enabled all the time will have a negligible impact on battery, if any at all. Some other things to consider about leaving it on (or not):

PRO: If your device has a hardware problem that prevents you from accessing the screen, USB debugging could be helpful in recovering data (especially on a rooted device).
PRO: You can install applications, reboot your device, and generally do some other convenient things without having to actually interact with your device physically, even with the screen locked/off.
PRO: On a rooted device it may be possible to regain entry if you have forgotten the screen lock password/pin/pattern (also a potential CON, see below).
PRO: You can take advantage of port forwarding over USB debugging to use tethering apps like PDANet (I believe that's how it's implemented since it does require it).
CON: If your device is lost or stolen, an unscrupulous individual could attempt to steal data from the device regardless of whether or not you've got a screen lock. If you're rooted, they can get pretty much everything.
CON: I recall reading that some devices can have trouble with accessing the SD card as a mass storage device when USB debugging is enabled. I've personally never seen this issue, but I have seen people allege that it was a problem.

See also: Using Hardware Devices from the Android SDK documentation which discusses debugging applications on physical devices (rather than the emulator). There is also a documentation page regarding the Android Debug Bridge (ADB) which explains its purpose and its commands.

If you were to charge off of an untrusted "charging station" (via USB, not mains), you would want to turn USB Debugging off. What you think is just power could be a full data connection.

One more cons: Malicious apps can damage system easily..

To make one of eldarerathis' cons less critical:
One could use Tasker or Locale together with the Secure Settings plugin to automatically toggle USB Debugging on for safe locations (based e.g. on cell towers, network/GPS location, WiFi networks connected or in reach), and toggle it off (exit-task with Tasker) when leaving such. With a NFC tag and the Locale NFC Plugin it could also be switched it on/off on demand.
All that even without touching the screen -- so it would work even if the screen is broken. And that "unscrupulous individual" then would have to be in your "safe location" or have your tag, and must know those circumstances -- which is much less risky.
If your device does not belong to that small group having trouble mounting their storage with USB Debugging turned on, this would leave almost no "Con" then.

The biggest downside is not being able to mount it as a mass storage device when you plug it into the computer.  With it turned on it will always assume you want to debug the device.  You really only need it turned on if you are developing software for the phone or plan on using adb with your phone.  The adb program is only available through the Android SDK so its not something average users need.  That being said I keep my turned on all the time, but that's only for connivence for doing Android development because I do that more often that use it as a mass storage.  You mileage may vary.

I never had any issues with my devices not being able to mount as UMS with USB Debugging turned on. Also, adb can be installed without the full SDK (see Is there a minimal installation of ADB?) and prove useful to non-developers, e.g. for creating a Full Backup of non-rooted devices with Android 4.0+.

You don't have need to keep debugging always on. In some devices it affects the charging of battery.  When debugging is kept on, the charging speed becomes very   low....  it'll take more than 5 hours to full charge.... if you have such problem then keep off usb debugging, ON it only when you need......

I've never heard of devices having such a problem. Is there somewhere I can read more about this?


text:
Acer Iconia Tab A500 - Rooting & Honeycomb 3.2
I just bought a brand new Iconia Tab A500. I just unboxed it and it shall be charging for the next 14 hours :)
While I wait for first booting it, I have a question on rooting with 3.2. The tablet comes with Honey 3.0, but I read that the 3.2 update is ready to be delivered OTA. But I absolutely want to root it!

Can I root the device after the OS upgrade?
Or should I root it first?
Or, does upgrade remove rooting and currently there's no [yet] rooting for HC3.2?

Thank you

As far as I know, the 3.2 update on the A500 has not been rooted (some discussion here). There's one XDA thread where someone has described a method of downgrading so you can root, but nothing that lets you root 3.2 in and of itself.
If you want to have root access then I would suggest rooting the shipped version, then manually upgrading to a pre-rooted version of the latest OTA update.

Great answer. Another quick question: is it hard to brick the device if I want to try several ROMs. I mean, in the HTC devices I know that you can actually brick only when you try to flash bootloader, otherwise you'll ALWAYS have the time to flash the ROM again with another one. Does the same apply to Iconia? The last link wasn't quite assuring about safety :D

@djechelon: As long as you can get to you recovery (even stock recovery) you're okay, but I don't know if the A500 allows you to flash partitions using fastboot and the like. I've never seen anything that implies that you can, which would mean if you wrecked both your recovery and boot partitions you could be in a bad state. That's about as familiar as I am with the A500, though.


text:
why does the xoom dock connect the USB port?
I feel like I must be missing something. I got the Xoom dock from Verizon along with my 4G upgrade (The turn around on the whole thing was 1.5 days, and the 4G is amazingly fast, so, definitely don't put that off if you have that option), and it powers the device AND plugs a USB connector into it (making it kind of tricky to seat correctly on the dock, since the connector is a micro USB). However, the dock doesn't appear to have a USB pass-through, so, it acts EXCLUSIVELY as a charging station! So... why the USB plug and if all it's going to do is charge, I may as well just keep plugging it in!
Am I overlooking something?

Not familiar with the Xoom, but some devices use USB to detect when they're docked, could this be the case?

I just assumed that it was to keep the Xoom stable in the dock, honestly. Without plugging into something I feel like it wouldn't be very snug in the dock and would fall over when I tap the screen.

@eldarerathis, that's a reasonable assumption, but it really irritates me that I can't connect it to my computer while its in the dock... Really, this seems like a ludicrous oversight.

If you're feeling adventurous (or you're just good with electronics) you can crack it open and add your own USB passthrough ;) I agree, though: it's annoying and if it wasn't free with the upgrade I wouldn't gotten one myself.

unfortunately I am nowhere NEAR this industrious. But it's good to know that this is not something I'm just overlooking.

The Xoom dock has a connector to the USB port for Audio and stability. The back of the dock has a stereo out port.
Here is a link detailing the innards and how to convert to a plain USB. http://wordpress.greghausman.com/2011/05/08/motorola-xoom-usb-dock/

thanks... yeah, I had a 'duh' moment when I remembered that that's how it passes the audio along. As I said, I'm not handy enough (and not motivated enough), even with the instructions, to modify the USB portion of this... at least not this week, but thanks very much for the link.


text:
Missing "left screen" in my SGS1 . How can it be added?
I have stuff on the 7th screen and I've expected to be able to reach it on left swipe from homescreen, but it is not so.
How can I configure it ? Does it require some non-default launcher?

Can you navigate the screens in circular fashion (right swiping on the last screen takes you back to first screen). If this is not the case then you can't go directly to 7th screen by left swiping on first screen.

This is an option in most launchers, but I think it's not available in the stock launcher. I'd recommend switching to Launcher Pro, there it's enabled by default and can be toggled from Preferences -> Homescreen settings -> Homescreen looping.

If you're using the original Samsung supplied OS with  Samsung's Touchwiz interface, then it doesn't wrap around, to get to the 7th screen you have to scroll seven screens to the right.
Alternatively you can "pinch" zoom out on any of the home screens to zoom out and see an overview of all of your screens, and tap any of them to move straight to them. You can also add and remove screens (up to 7) from here, by dragging unwanted screens to the trash bin at the bottom of the screen, or clicking the plus sign to add another (up to 7).

At the top of your homescreen, there should be a row of white dots, one for each screen. You can tap them to skip directly to selected homescreen.


text:
Asus Transformer video playback
I have an Asus Transformer tablet with the dock extesion and I am trying to play a video file recorded in MOV format. I had recorded the video on my Powershot ELPH 310HS camera in 1080p setting and it is saved in h264 format.
I tried putting the SD card into the dock and playg back the video but the playback is very slow and I think it i sbeing done in software.I installed the MX video player app to play back the video.
My question is if there is any way to do playback using a HW  video decoder? I thik that I've read that the tegra 2 has this bultin but I don't know enough about video formats to know whether this is a hardware limitation or whether it could be solved with a diffferent app.

Mobo Player. Singlehandedly the best video player app on Android. Its the 'VLC' of Android. Plays nearly every format flawlessly.
Download the app, click the button to download a 2MB codec pack (so it can play different video formats) and you are good to go. If you have any problem with the playback, just go into the settings and force software rendering.
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.clov4r.android.nil&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5jbG92NHIuYW5kcm9pZC5uaWwiXQ..

I installed it, then the the codec.  And now when I launch it, I get sent to the Market app, showing the Mobo app, with Open and uninstall.  So open takes me back to the Market app.  Very odd.


text:
Do I need a complicated root? Why? How (Samsung GT-S5660)
I am trying to install  "Samba Filesharing" on my Samsung GT-S5660.
The requirements is that it is rooted, and also the application "Superuser".
Rooting, seems to be a complicated hack.
Why is that necessary?
This is a phone sold without a contract, and I am concerned that phones with contracts are a bit different, and i think in a phone like mine it should be a simple setting or something.
What should be the best approach in my case?

http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/236/what-does-to-root-a-phone-mean

Ok if you havent checked out the link Uri posted, "root," to put it simply, is administrative privileges on the phone and gives you the ability to mess with core system files and configurations.
The "Superuser" app is just an app that is designed to grant or block root permissions to different apps.
Rooting android phones is sometimes complicated but it mainly depends on the phone and manufacturer as different manufacturers lock down their phones in different ways. Some developers have brought it down to you just plugging in your phone when a certain app is running and everything is done for you while other times will require you to run terminal commands, and download specific software onto your phone. Unlike standard desktop Linux, root has to be acquired through exploits apparent in the phones.
Now why gain root?
Well for android phones, it allows us to a variety of things such as have the ability to underclock our processors for considerably better battery life or overclock them for performance. We can also create wifi-hotspots with ease, run network based attacks such as ARP-Poisoning, conduct cookie hijacking and so on. Its like jailbreaking an iPhone (except its a LOT more power to tinker in the palm of your hands).
In your case, your app probably configures the network card on your phone for the File Server in a way that cannot be done with the traditional Android API and so needs more system access (hence the request for root permissions).
There is no "simple" setting to turn on root no matter what phone you have. This is because carriers make money by locking down your phone and forcing you to pay for more functionality (i.e tethering/wifi-hotspot). If they give you the ability to activate root, then some people could easily circumvent their control, thus making them lose money. The other possibility is that careless people who don't know what they are doing could seriously mess up their own phones and thus making it a support nightmare for carriers and manufacturers who now have to deal with bricked phones.
What should your best approach be? It all depends. If you really plan on tinkering with the phone or want custom software or want better battery life, then rooting is for you. If you just want to use your phone with no extra functionality or no hassle, then don't bother for root as you probably don't need it.
If you do want to root, CAREFULLY follow all instructions and do your research. Your best place to start is on your device forums on xda here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1404
The 1 click root also has a very good chance of working but this isn't verified to work with your device afaik.

I tried one or two generic root-applications, and it didn't work to well.
In the end I googled for my model, and it was quite easy (Though it seemed to be carrier differences)


text:
Why can't I get s=ON on my MyTouch 4g?
I have followed the following 2 tutorials on how to unroot and get S=ON on the MyTouch 4g:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=834225
I have successfully reverted to the stock ROM and unrooted the phone, but I still have S=OFF.  When I run the first one in the emulator, it gets all the way through execution and tells me to reboot into hboot to get s=ON, but when I do that, it still shows S=OFF:
Duplicating hboot
2048+0 records in
2048+0 records out
1048576 bytes transferred in 0.563 secs (1862479 bytes/sec)
Synchronizing
Powerdown and reboot into hboot to check s=on

I really would like to get S=ON so that I can ask my provider for service if I need it.

As it turns out, my problem was that I have unrooted my phone before attempting to reset to S=Off.  The kernel Did not allow this, because the phone was, obviously, not rooted.  After rerooting my phone and attempting the method above again (I had to enter the commands in the unroot script manually.  It didnt work when just running the script), I was able to get S=On and revert to the Stock ROM.

This link should help. It contains a link to a thread detailing a special zip file created by one of the developers. It will help you possibly get S-ON. The step by step instructions are in the thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=863899
By the way, S-OFF isn't something service technicians actively look for. Many people have sent in phones for servicing with S-Off and technicians still fix it. With my Nexus One, once you get S-Off, it shows an unlock symbol that doesn't go away and is shown every time with the splash image during boot. However, many of my friends with this phone have gotten it fixed without problems.
EDIT: If the S-OFF doesnt work, you should private message or PM the developer who created the zip file on xda. He will be better able to help you as he has repeatedly got S-ON and S-OFF. I dont have the same device. Unfortunately, the bootloaders are device specific and vary on the manufacturer. My experience with S-OFF will be different from yours.

I have attempted that and I still have S=OFF.  If you don't mind me asking, what provider do you have?  I have brought my phone in before and the salespeople seem to check for S=Off before they will even process a claim, which I assume means that they will void my warranty if the see S=Off, as I have been told before.

@Gautham: Sending people to some other site for their answer isn't really helpful. Linkrot happens, of course. Can you at least summarize what will be found at that destination?

@AlEverett, you are right. Edited the post according to your recommendation.

@ewok My service provider is T-Mobile but they aren't the ones who repair it. It usually is sent to a manufacturer's service center (GSM based phones anyway) so mine would go to an HTC repair center.


text:
How do I sideload apps from the Amazon AppStore?
I recently upgraded my phone and I am in the process of getting all of my old apps installed on my new handset.  My internet connection is pretty slow, and I have purchased many apps through Amazon's free app of the day program.  Is there any way for me to copy the apps from my original handset to my PC and then side load them on my new device?  This would save me a lot of time waiting for all of these downloads to finish.

You will need root access on your devices (well, at least on the old one) in order to copy the apps off it.  Once rooted, you can use a number of 3rd-party "Backup" apps to save a copy of the apps to your SD Card, copy it to your PC, and then side-load them onto your new phone.  The one I use is Titanium Backup.

Root your original device.  Look at sites like XDA-developers or RootzWiki for help with that.
In Titanium Backup use the Backup/Restore functionality to backup the apps you need to the SD Card.
On the new phone also install Titanium Backup app, enable side-loading (menu -> Settings -> Applications -> Unknown sources), and use the Restore functionality to restore the apps.

If you don't feel like installing a 3rd-party backup app, this can be done manually, although it's a lot more involved (installing Android SDK, USB drivers, using Command Prompt to find package names and copy the APKs from old phone and installing them on the new one.)

I already have the Android SDK installed and USB drivers for both devices.  How would I do this at the command line so I can avoid rooting my old device?

You would still need to root the old device, since access to /data/ partition is not available without elevated privileges.  Once rooted though, try "adb shell ls /data/app/" and "adb shell ls /data/app-private/" to get the listing of installed apps. Then by looking at package names you can figure out which app they represent. Then for each app you want to copy, do the following: "adb pull /data/app/package.name.here.apk c:\AndroidApps".  After that you can hook up your new phone and do "adb install c:\AndroidApps\package.name.here.apk" to side-load them.


text:
How to sync with iTunes acting as an iPOD
Is it possible, and what is the best / best free way to sync iTunes to an Android device, having all the music transferred that would be transferred to an iPod?
Is it possible to have more transferred?

The main purpose is to transport the files from a mac to  a windows machine so we can process it there, playing experience on the device is secondary.
We have music from many sources, in many formats, inside/outside of the library folder.  Some are not stored but streamed from the Internet when we play them.
(When we try to burn CD's, or export with some app, typically only a few files are exported)

I do not think there is a way android will work on itunes natively. I would suggest look at media players that sync with the itunes program itself I have not tried this but http://www.winamp.com has this feature for a while and is free. Its also mac http://www.winamp.com/mac OS X 10.6 and above
http://blog.winamp.com/2010/11/30/sync-your-itunes-library-to-android-with-winamp/
The media you talked about that is streaming will hopefully be synced into winamp through playlists, however if this does not work that is a whole other question and may be different from stream to stream.
http://www.clementine-player.org/ is a good free opensource alternative for windows etc that syncs with android players quitewell and has many streaming features built in.
If your itunes is stuck on a powerpc you might not have a choice but to backup your itunes library and restore it to another computer. So on your itunes on your old powerpc backup the library to some removable media to restore on your windows itunes http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1382?viewlocale=en_US there are also other methods here http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527 it all depends on your setup and needs.

Thanks for great answer.  Though it seems these 2 suggestion won't run on out Mac (They require OS versions which won't run on out PowerPC Mac)

oh ok, I added to the answer at the bottom, sorry about the powerpc not even apple support them anymore, http://www.clementine-player.org/ works on mac but its snowleapord which may not work on powerpc

DoubleTwist lets you sync your phone's music library with your music on your computer from iTunes (and Windows Media Player as well, I believe) either by plugging it into your computer's USB port, or by syncing wirelessly over-the-air (though the wireless feature costs a little bit). You can find it at http://www.doubletwist.com/ and in the Android Market at https://market.android.com/details?id=com.doubleTwist.androidPlayer.
Another option is to sync your collection wirelessly using Google Music, though you can only stream your music using it, or download it and play it only using the Music app (cannot be played by other media players on your phone). Google Music is free (for up to something like 20,000 songs) and it backs up all your music that you have on your computer (or that you purchase from the Android Market) both to your phone and your computer.

Are you still forced to create an online account to use double twist? that annoyed me so I didn't try it.

That's not true about Google Music. You can download all of your music to your phone from Google Music's cloud, it just obfuscates the song's information so that no other app can see the title, artist, etc.

No, I don't believe you have to create an online account, though you can purchase music directly in DoubleTwist for Mac/PC from Amazon. And @SaintWacko, you are correct, thanks for pointing that out. I updated my post accordingly. :D

Well, you can play it using another app, if you remove the .nomedia file, but really only if you're planning to shuffle all, as you won't be able to see what the songs are actually called. Google music downloads them without their info tags, and I believe it uses an internal table to keep track of that info.

@SaintWacko thanks for correcting me, I never thought to remove that file before. Though if you're going to want to transfer music back and forth between your phone and computer, I'd still say DoubleTwist is the way to go.

@BigCaseyDog Only problem with that is that you have to use the DoubleTwist player to listen to your music :( Or so I've heard; I could be wrong.

@SaintWacko I think you can use any player you like, as I use DoubleTwist to sync with my phone and you only need to have the app there for syncing. It just sticks it in a folder on your SD card, which gets picked up by other apps like Amazon MP3 and Google Music (or at least it did in my experience).

@BigCaseyDog Hm, I'll have to look into using that then. I've been wanting a wireless sync, but I didn't want to have to stop using PowerAmp.

@SaintWacko Yeah, DoubleTwist's AirSync feature is pretty nice (albeit it being $4.99), though with the AirSync upgrade, you also get some other nice stuff, like fancier music control widgets, AirPlay (as in streaming to Apple TV) functionality, and wireless sharing of media with other devices through NFC chips. PowerAmp does have some really nice features in the player, so I can understand why you want to keep that. Music from DoubleTwist should work with it, I'm pretty sure.

@BigCaseyDog Now I wish I had bought it when it was on sale.

@SaintWacko Well, you could always try Amazon and hope that it's the "Free App of the Day", though that's a pretty slim chance considering how many others they have.


text:
Can I buy the Samsung official extended battery for the UK Galaxy Nexus?
Samsung have released an extended battery for the US Galaxy Nexus.  I know the US and EU versions have a slightly different shape, so was wondering if this extended battery would fit my UK Galaxy Nexus?  Or if there's a version which would fit?

Where did you read they have a different shape?

@shawn I think I've seen it on Droid-Life. For some reason, I don't think they are compatible

Oh! I now remember: the LTE version is already thick as it is because of the additional LTE antenna.  So putting a LTE battery in a non-LTE version might be too big. I can't confirm if it will work or not, so hence a comment instead of an answer

In the ad I saw for the extended battery it came with a new cover, so perhaps it would work anyways? I'd say just go for it, and post your experience as an answer. :)

Engadget has a great comparison shot of the battery differences between the HSPA+ and LTE versions in their review of the Verizon (LTE) Galaxy Nexus. The short answers seems to be 'no'; the link you provided is to an extended battery for the LTE Galaxy Nexus and therefore wouldn't be compatible with your HSPA+ version.


text:
How can I get the Android Market installed on my Kindle Fire?
There are a couple of apps I'd like to install that aren't available in Amazon's store. Is there a way I can get the normal Android Market app set up on this thing, so I can get apps (and updates for those apps...) without involving Amazon?

You can use Kindle Fire Utility to easily get root and Market with Google Apps.
It would automatically perform steps described in the above answers and even more.

Came time to do this again, and the KFU got the job done very quickly - didn't even have to install the SDK. Very nice.

You can set up the Market on a Fire, but only if you have root by doing the following (guide originally from this XDA thread):

Prerequisites
Root your Kindle Fire
Download the following apks
  GoogleServicesFramework.apk
  Vending.apk (Latest Version 3.3.11)
  See HERE for .apk downloads (complete GApps zip file)
Root Explorer App (or similar that lets you change ro/rw permissions)
Side Loading Apps activated on Kindle Fire On the Kindle Fire Settings
  screen, go to “Device” and turn On “Allow Installation of Application
  From Unknown Sources”
Instructions

Transfer the .apk files to your Kindle Fire via PC / Mac (remember where you put them)
Open Root Explorer App, and navigate to the transferred .apk files
Select the GoogleServiceFramework.apk and install
When complete, click "Done" and return to the file location for Vending.apk
Long-press Vending.apk and select the "Move" option on pop-up menu Navigate to /system/app folder
Change mount option from RO to RW (read-only to read-write) Paste Vending.apk into the /system/app folder
Long-press Vending.apk and select "Permissions" from pop-up menu Change permissions to match all other apps in this folder (rw-r--r--)
Install Vending.apk
Reboot your Kindle Fire

You can also use adb instead of a file manager to perform all of these steps. Simply use adb install <apk> to install an apk file. To move Vending.apk to /system/app you'd probably need to first push it to the sdcard (adb push Vending.apk /sdcard) and then copy it over from a root shell (cp /sdcard/Vending.apk /system/app). When changing permissions you would need to use chmod 0644 /system/app/Vending.apk from a root shell. To remount the system partition as read/write you would need to execute
mount -o rw,remount /dev/block/platform/mmci-omap-hs.1/by-name/system /system

from a root shell.
After performing the above steps the Market won't appear in your apps list or on your carousel. You can work around this by either installing a 3rd party launcher or by using the Market Opener app, which basically just bootstraps it.

eldarerathis's answer got me going on the right track... Since I already had the Android SDK installed on my Windows PC, I configured it to recognize the Fire:

Edit <sdk location>\extras\google\usb_driver\android_winusb.inf to add the following to the [Google.NTx86] and [Google.NTamd64] sections:
;Kindle Fire
%SingleAdbInterface% = USB_Install, USB\VID_1949&PID_0006
%CompositeAdbInterface% = USB_Install, USB\VID_1949&PID_0006&MI_01

Then plug in the Kindle, and update the driver.
Edit %USERPROFILE%\.android\adb_usb.ini to add the following line:
0x1949

Then restart the adb server: adb kill-server

Then rooted the device, and ran the following commands to push the market onto it:
adb root
adb remount
adb push GoogleServicesFramework.apk /system/app/GoogleServicesFramework.apk
adb push Vending.apk /system/app/Vending.apk

Finally threw on that handy Market Opener app eldarerathis pointed out, launched it, logged into my Google account, and away I went...


text:
How do I press "Up" if I do not have an "Up" button?
Hi all I'm using a Samsung Galaxy Ace S5830 and I wanted to test a "Snake (Game)" app.
When I launched the app, this is what I have:

Samsung Galaxy Ace does not have an "Up" button, I was wondering what are the steps I'd have to take to simulate one?

As far as I'm aware no Android phones, other than the Xperia Play (Playstation phone) have an up button. Have you tried just swiping up the screen? There's a few Snake clones on the Market, do you have a link to the Market page for this game, so someone else could try?

@GAThrawn I've swiped it but it doesn't work. I can't seem to do anything to make the app respond at all. Btw it's one of the "sample apps" which came along with the Android SDK installation.

No VOLUME up button?

@Chance I have the volume up button, except that it isn't making the app responding

@GAThrawn lots of android phones have hardware keyboards with d-pads. It may not be the same key code, but they definitely have an "up" button.

GO keyboard also has an up button.
You'll just need to launch the editor.

Im not familiar with your device, is the big thing in the middle on the bottom a trackpad type device? I.E. can you use it to scroll a long page if you rub your finger over it like you would a laptop trackpad?
If so then rubbing that thing with an upward motion should send the DPAD_UP event, which I assume that game is listening for. You might also try pressing on the top edge of this button thing, perhaps the whole thing is a dpad of sorts.
If that thing isn't able to scroll at all then Im afraid you're probably s.o.l. The game is listening for an event that your device is incapable of sending. If you are interested in development then let this be a lesson to consider all device types and input schemes when designing your interface.
{rant} What is with the trackball hate? The first several devices had trackballs on them, and it was an excellent input method, now they've moved them all to this optical / touch sensor crud {/rant}
EDIT: So even if your device doesn't have any type of trackball type device you aren't entirely SOL after all. https://market.android.com/details?id=com.pedrocorp.virtualtrackball&hl=en that is an app that will give you a virtual d-pad or trackball. There might be a free one if you search around.
P.S. if anyone with influence over hardware design happens to see this: Making a device with no d-pad type input is terrible, it makes so many interactions needlessly awkward. Please don't do it.

Do I actually need to pay for a virtual keypad?

If you use that one then yes(Sucks that samsung screwed you on that). If you search around there might be a free one on the market(I don't know for sure though). Note also this app is for rooted devices only.

1) If this game has to tested on your device and if you have the source code of the project you can disable or change the listener of button or what components it may be. The constants for catching the up button click event you may see in the Activity.class is the following;
KeyEvent.KEYCODE_DPAD_UP

OR
KeyEvent.KEYCODE_CHANNEL_UP

You can change this constant with other KeyEvent constants. See link : http://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/KeyEvent.html
2) If this game doesn't have to be tested on your physical device, then there is emulator option whose virtual keyboard has many buttons. While creating Android Virtual Device you have a bunch of screen options, ram storage, etc. You can create virtual device whose hardware is almost same with your physical device. after that you can push the .apk file by using adb-install command and test it on virtual device.

Well, if you have cyanogen, you could download swype, and go into the settings of cyanogenmod to show the keyboard on menu hold. Then you could go into the edit menu, and press the up button.

adb shell input keyevent MENU, then press the "Start" on the menu

If you are testing snake from the Android applications examples,
you should modify the code in order to include  the gesture class.
I simply have done this by hooking the event_key manager by the gesture events.
Good training to get familiar with the gingerbread API :-)


text:
How to prevent adb shell from exiting upon Ctrl+C
When I adb shell into my device (from Windows desktop), and run some command there, sometimes I want to terminate that command. The standard unixy way to do it is with Ctrl+C key combination. However, when I do that, the whole adb shell terminates.
How can I terminate just the current program inside the shell, not the shell itself?

I read a forum post claiming that Ctrl+] worked, but I tried it with no luck. Your mileage may vary. There appears to be no way to have adb pass Ctrl-C on, since it doesn't capture SIGINT. The standard Ctrl-V method doesn't seem to work for Ctrl-C, though it did convert Enter to ^J , unfortunately.

I found sort of a workaround for this (at least for a rooted phone). If a phone is rooted, busybox is most probably installed. stty is part of busybox.

stty intr ^x

Redefines Ctrl+X to act as a break command, e.g. what was previously Ctrl+C.

That's pretty awesome.

Alt-NumPad 3 + Enter works for me. Alt-NumPad 0-NumPad 3 + Enter also works and displays "^C".

On Windows, you can just enter [Alt]+[3] via the numpad (don't forget to press enter afterwards).
This sends [Ctrl]+[c] to the shell thereby terminating the current command:
D:\Android>adb shell
$ cat
cat
♥
^C

$ exit
exit

D:\Android>
Note that [Alt]+[3] produces the ASCII-Char ♥ in Windows which equals the ETX-Byte.
You can also press [Alt]+[0]-[3] (hold the Alt key down while pressing [0] and [3] on the numpad) if you don't wand windows to display a heart ;)

i was able to stop the top process and still stay in shell by typing the following in this order:
C
CTRL+Z
CTRL+M
if I did not type all 3 of those combos it would not stop and I would have to CTRL+C to exit the shell. I found this by just trying different combinations of keys and found it by accident. YMMV

Ctrl+Z suspends a process, e.g. you have to kill it later with kill or killall. This workaround is better than nothing, though...

i realized that after when i did an "exit". funny thing, it wasnt the ctrl+z that did anything, it didnt actually go back to the shell until i did ctrl+m, and if i didnt type "c" first, it didnt do anything.

This doesn't work for me (I tried vmstat not top though).  Interestingly, when I press Ctrl-Z it looks like nothing happens but in fact my input starts being redirected straight to the Windows shell and not to adb.  adb's output (from vmstat) keeps showing up in the shell window but I could type cd C: (for example) and it would execute in the Windows shell.  If I then pressed Ctrl-C the output would stop and I would see the command I had typed into the Windows shell behind the scenes.  Very weird!

Ctrl+\ followed by Enter usually works fine.
This will send a SIGQUIT signal which may not be appropriate for a server (dumps a core file for example) but I don't think it's a problem using this on an Android phone/tablet (which doesn't dump a core file by default). Easy solution that works in most cases.


text:
Use my device as laser pointer
I'm not sure if this is possible, but knowing that is possible to use the device as mouse I think this should also be possible: Somehow connect the phone with a PC, then in the place you touch from the phone, in the computer should appear a red dot (or something).
Is there any app for this?? Is it possible?

You want to use it as an input tablet, essentially, and the red dot is just representing the cursor?

@MatthewRead yes, thats right!

It is totally possible, and there are a lot of remote touchmouse apps available on the Android market. Just search remote mouse, touch mouse, etc. That being said, I think that will be even nicer is to have an app that uses the orientation of the device as the cursor position, i.e. it works like a real laser pointer. (That i have not seen yet and I am coding one.)

will give u an update when i finish the app. (btw, r u using iOS, Linux or windows?)

One solution would be to use a program such as TeamViewer and set the computer's cursor to a red dot, or just use the regular cursor. Teamviewer has a program that runs on the computer, and an app that allows you to control the computer from your phone. I think it would work quite well for what you have in mind.

Is TeamViewer lightweight? I thought about suggesting RDP or VNC but they're way too heavy for such a simple task.

@MatthewRead Which end of it? The Android end of it does some stuff to the feedback to make it display cleaner on the device's screen. I don't know how lightweight the computer end is. I've never been around my computer while I was controlling it. I've never noticed any lag from it, though.

Lag and precision are probably the most important indicators. Can't speak for the OP but I'd be OK with a processor intensive app that didn't have a lot of network overhead and thus didn't lag.

@MatthewRead There is a bit of lag, I've noticed, but that could just be because my bandwidth at home is abysmal.

Its a good workaround but I'd really prefer some simpler and lightweight app.


text:
Issue with Google Play System Update on Rooted Samsung Galaxy A15 4G
After initiating the Google Play System update, the phone reboots automatically as part of the process. However, after this first reboot, the phone reboots itself again. Following this second reboot, I find that the update has not been installed. Instead, the system seems to have reverted to its previous, non-updated state.
Also, I have two logs: A14 4G logcat (github.com), which was from my first attempt, and A14 4G logcat (github.com). For the second log, I removed Google Meet and tried again.
The ROM on my device is up-to-date, so I am trying to understand why the Google Play System update isn’t installing properly and how I might fix this issue. Any insights or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

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


text:
One picture disappeared out of a batch taken
On vacation, we took a lot of portrait  photos in a short period of time. We looked at the last picture taken outside, and it came out perfect.  We then went inside to take some more.  After taking some more, when reviewing various photos, I noticed one photo (not the "perfect" one) had the work "Processing" message at the bottom.
I didn't think too much about that, until that evening when reviewing all the photos, and the perfect photo didn't show up.  Nor was it synced to Google Photos. The Google Photos app said "2 files remaining to back up" (or similar).  Checking the next day, all files processed; no "perfect" photo on phone, nor on Google Photos.
I checked my "Trash" folder in Google, the Files app on the phone, and plugged my phone into my computer via USB, and browsed the internal storage of my phone via Windows Explorer.  No luck.  I checked the "Locked" folder on my phone to see if I somehow had it switched to store in the "Locked" folder and it was not there.
Any other possible places to explore?  Was this a rare bug I hit?
Phone:  Google Pixel 8 Pro, Android 14.

I'm supposing the photos were labelled by numeric sequence, and now there's a gap? What clear evidence was the missing one , apart from human recall?

The Pixel camera apps use a date/timestamp in the filename, unlike point&shoot cameras. Such at PXL_20240614_214231763.jpg  Good question though.  I'm 99% sure I did see the mystery picture right after I took it.

AFAIR, taking a batch of photos too quickly might get the disk I/O bottlenecked and corrupted a few (e.g. blank photo), but they should still be listed in the gallery/Google Photos app. As for Google Camera, based on my experience, the processing time might increase significantly if there are too many photos being queued, thus the photo you saw might not have been processed, and after post-processing, the photo looks different. However, it's a wild guess since it's kind of difficult to diagnose the issue due to the post-processing.


text:
What is com.wingos.camerasaver?
Whenever I start my device, there is like a camera shaped indicator which shows up on the status bar for like 2 or 3 seconds. When I investigate by clicking on it, it shows that the app has no permission granted at all. I am confused as to why it keeps on happening. I can't seem to uninstall it as it doesn't appear in my "installed app section".

Looks like it's a Samsung's app. Related/possible dupe (but not answered yet): com.sec.android.app.camerasaver is using the camera in the background on Android 12

Also on Google Support: 1 (English), 2 (German) and Samsung Community (German).


text:
My Samsung A51 locked for 24 hrs
My Samsung A 51 got locked for 24 hrs as I was using it with finger print but my little kid did multiple attempts on pattern, now I am doing attempt every after 24 hrs, I know there is no possible way to get into my phone and I don't want to erase my all data. Having a lot of memories of my family. My question is that how long can I do attempts or it will block the phone forever?


text:
How can I keep settings after flashing a ROM?
I am considering flashing my SGS to a custom ROM.  I do not, however, relish the prospect of re-configuring everything.  Most apps on my phone and most definitions should have no dependencies on the ROM, so I would like to be able to back up all the settings, flash the ROM and then restore them.  This would include:

all installed apps
all app settings (launcher preferences, active widgets etc.)
ringtones, backgrounds etc.

Is there any way to do this?

Titanium Backup from the Android Market!
From the Technical FAQ:

Can it back up and restore applications across different ROMs or even different phones ?

YES, without restrictions.

Although you also have:
Can it back up SMS, MMS and system settings ?

Please note that if you backup and restore all system settings across very different ROMs, you are on your own. Before restoring on a different ROM, it is strongly recommended to enable the "Data migration" option in the Titanium Backup settings.

Doesn't Titanium require you to restore to the same ROM as you backed up?

Not necessarily, from the wiki manual. Migrate system data: Use this before restoring system data from a different (incompatible) ROM, or even different phone model

I've used Titanium after flashing to a new ROM without being required to go back.  With the free version you have to manually confirm each app which is a pain, but I heard that with the paid version you can do it all at once.  Keep in mind that sometimes the ROM has a more up to date version of a particular app, depending on where you started (for instance, Samsung Galaxy S has 2.2 for MMS, keyboard, etc... whereas my custom ROM has 2.2.1 versions).

I can confirm that Titanium does not require the same ROM at all.  I'm sure in many cases it could even be done with entirely different devices.  And the paid version makes things a lot easier. It's one of the few apps I've bought and is definitely worth the money.

Just to confirm it works between different devices and versions, I used it to migrate from an HTC Buzz to a Motorola Droid 2. As said, just be careful with system related stuff (including SMS, call-logs, etc.), which can break things (force-close on SMS, for one). Also, the troubleshooting options provide additional help just-in-case.

Also consider making a nandroid backup before anything!

Good advice, but nandroid doesn't allow settings-only restore.  This should probably be a comment?

@MatthewRead True on both counts. Wasn't sure about amending anothers post. Nandroid is a god send when your attempts at restoring settings through TB go awry. Saved my bacon!

Just a minor update - Appextractor in the Play Store does allow extracting partial data from a nandroid.


text:
Multiple Android Market Accounts on a Single Device?
Is it possible to have multiple Android Market accounts on a Single phone?
If so, how do I do that?
(I have been able to add a second Gmail account, but I couldn't find any option to add a second Android Market account)

Nope, at least not as of now.  You can factory reset your device to remove the first account you set up (on some devices, you can just remove all the accounts without the reset) and then add the other one first, if you would like to use it instead. But if you actively want to use both, you're stuck.

Ouch! So how am I supposed to test LVL integration with my application? This is the 2nd Catch 22 in Google's LVL scheme. I can understand how Google could release such a half-baked solution, but then why force developers to use LVL if they want to make their paid Applications available in the Android market? Thanks + 1 + accepting.

@an00b Good question. Hopefully Android 4.0 will address this problem!

This is so frustrating, because Google clearly instructs in the Edit Profile page to enter additional Gmail addresses for testing purposes. But these additional Gmail addresses cannot have Market accounts... and I can "buy" the application from myself (for testing purposes) but I can only do it once! So I can't really test upgrades... See the Catch 22?

I believe that it's not an OS version problem, but rather the facilities provided on http://market.android.com/publish  I can understand Google not wanting to provide more than one Market account per device for security reasons.

This is no longer valid. See: How to change the account for Android Market?

Sure. It was not meant to criticize your answer (it was perfectly fine at that time), but rather meant as "follow-up" for those getting here with the same problem. Feel free to include that hint directly with your answer :)


text:
Does Verizon Prepaid Mobile Broadband work on Android PHONES?
According to this page:

Prepaid Mobile Broadband usage is not
  available on any PC cards. Only
  available on Express-Cards, USB
  modems, Intelligent Mobile Hotspots
  and Mobile Broadband Built-In on
  select notebooks/netbooks.

Note how cell phones are missing from that list. Does this mean that Android phones are excluded from Verizon's Prepaid Mobile Broadband?

Update: I found this great comparison chart, but it is still unclear whether Verizon Prepaid Mobile Broadband work on Android phones. Why the ambiguity?

No, mobile broadband is called such specifically to distinguish it from a cell phone data plan.  You might be able to trick them by claiming your phone is one of the tablets they support, but only if you can get all its info (IMEI etc.) beforehand and they accept it, rather than requiring you to bring in the device.
However I believe they are able to detect this sort of trickery on a network level, even if you're not an existing customer and they know that your device is a phone.  I would not expect it to work for long.  I did a similar thing on T-Mobile and my service was cut after 2 days.


text:
Samsung Kies 1.5 not connecting the galaxy fit device
I have Samsung Galaxy fit with android 2.2 I have installed Samsung Kies 1.5 since I want to use mobile internet on desktop PC having Windows XP through USB. But when I connect my phone to PC using  data cable Kies keeps on showinf the message 'Connecting the device Please wait' for long time but it never connects. I have installed USB drivers for galaxy fit and I hope there is no prob with that part. Also USB debugging on the device is on. Can anybody help me out of this?

If you're planning to use Kies to connect to the device, USB Debugging must be off and the phone's USB mode must be set to Samsung Kies, otherwise Kies won't detect the phone.

Thanks for your response! But sorry I was wrong in stating my question. The device is getting connected when the USB debugging is off. But how to proceed for tethering? When I tick USB tethering on phone, Kies starts connecting the device again for long time and then no response. Do I also need to tick on Mobile AP option on the device? When I did it, its giving error. Now can you please help me on this?

I don't have that version combination for testing (running Android 2.3.3 and Win7), but for me tethering works then USB Debugging is on, I plug the device in and then tick USB Tethering. This automatically tethers the devices without the use of Kies. Does this work for you?

Oh, and you probably need this driver: http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=182134

@ onik oh, It really works without using kies. :) Thanks a lot!


text:
Prevent my phone from showing messages in the wrong order if I reply quickly?
When I access the Messages app that came with my phone and select a person I am presented with all the SMS messages my phone has stored between me and that person, in chronological order.
However, I get a message from someone and reply quickly, my message is permanently positioned above the message it is a reply to, not below it, even though it was sent at a later time.
What is causing this frustrating behaviour, and what can I do to ensure correct sorting order?

Pain in the neck this one. +1

It seems to be related to the local time on my phone, which I suspect was slow compared to the network. So, while the incoming messages where arriving listed as the "correct" time (on the network), I was then replying "before" them as far as my local clock was concerned and thus when the phone sorted on time their positions were swapped.
So, I've manually adjusted my clock forward a minute, and seem to have avoided the problem since.
Speaking to a friend knowledgeable in these things, O2 (my provider) apparently do not provide phones with network-updated time, I don't know if this is true or not, but it would explain how a difference could appear in the manner described.

I'm not 100% convinced yet that this is correct, but I'll accept this when I am - so will give it a while longer, maybe do some purposeful tests, to see if I get any message inversions.


text:
Error 331 sending SMS
An SMS failed to be sent and when I checked out the details the last line said "Error code 331".
What does this error mean ?

Error code 331 is an error that you would get back from the SMS gateway. It means: No network service is available.
If you continue to get that message, I suggest you call your carrier.

Actually I retried and it was sent successfully but I wanted to know the error meaning. How did you know the meaning of the error? Is there a list somewhere of all error codes ?

I google'd "SMS Error code 331" and found a site that had a listing of the SMS Gateway errors.


text:
Is it possible to backup a ROM before installing a custom one?
Can I backup my current ROM (Samsung modifications plus a few telco specific applications installed) before installing a custom ROM?

Theoretically yes.  Practically, it's much better just to reflash the ROM and then restore backed-up data.

The best backup you can do is a Nandroid backup. I didn't know what it was for a long time, but it works like magic. I'll include instructions, but note that i have an EVO, so they might vary a little.

Reboot into Recovery
This is different for most phones, for example, the EVO you reset while holding the `Volume Down` button. Or, since you have a rooted phone, you might be able to get to it by holding down the `Power` button, then selecting `Reboot/Recovery`.

Once in this menu, select `Backup/Restore`
Choose `Backup`, or a similarly named option

Flash your new rom or whatever, and if you are not pleased, simply follow the steps back to recovery and do a Restore. This will reset your phone to it's exact settings from before, down to which widgets you had on your homescreen and what settings you had enabled and disabled.

this is if you're looking for a full backup and restore, of course. If you're looking to backup data only, best use some app like Titanium Backup

I always do both. I do the titanium backup, then I backup with nandroid. If something fails in just the app data, I dont have to revert to the nandroid backup, i just restore from titanium, or I can even Wipe the app data when I do the ROM install, and use titanium to restore the apps.

for some reason i've never had titanium work for me, but Nandroid is foolproof.

There's an easier way than this even. I use ROM Manager, and it automatically asks you if you want to back up your current rom before installing a new one. ROM Manager also let's you install directly from your SD card, so you can do your backup, data and Davlik cache wipe, and flashing the new rom all from this app. It comes in most custom roms too.

ROM Manager may be great, but when you're new to all this, it might be "too easy". I recommend doing it "manually" once or twice, just to make sure you have a basic understanding of what happens on your phone when you flash recovery/roms or do backups.


text:
APN Switch for sprint devices
I have used APNDroid on many of my phones in the past. I have recently started using some sprint devices and noticed that this APN toggle widget will not disable the network connection on these devices. I don't know if it is something because of the different network type, or some other reason. Can anyone point me to another application that you've had luck using to turn off the data connection on sprint phone?

For anyone else who finds this: Tasker has an action that will shut off data on CDMA devices.

APNDroid doesn't work on CDMA phones.  This appears to be the case with most such apps.  Internet Scheduler and GreenPower claim to work on them if you have Gingerbread, though.
There are some other solutions you can try in this Google Groups thread.


text:
New messages do not show up immediately - HTC Desire Z
Has anybody else encountered this problem? I go into my message inbox and at that point I see I have unread text messages that were received many hours before without notification.
I have got the notifications configured appropriately to alert me to new text messages in the status bar. This is an intermittent problem.
Any help much appreciated.

In case anybody else is having the issue still, my phone recently picked up the Gingerbread release. This appears to have resolved the problem.

Other folks here have suggested that the issue may be with your SIM card:

Recipients complain they receive Text Message from me with a half hour delay

I was having a similar problem which was resolved when I reset my phone to factory settings (for other reasons). It might be worth asking your carrier for a new SIM, though.
PS. This user asked about sms receipt delays -- a different but related question.

Could you link to the other answer(s) where a SIM card issue was suggested?

I did link to the one, but I made that more explicit. I can't find others (though I did discover a lot of tag synonyms ...)

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


text:
How to set a solid color wallpaper?
My android comes with 3 different solid wallpapers. I have found more in the market but its paid. How to get a black wallpaper for free?

I used "Pitch Black Wallpaper" and I got just that: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tecdrop.pitchblackwallpaper&hl=en_US&gl=US

Can you not make your own?
Open up paint or photoshop of some sort and fill an area black. Save the image as a png and then place on your phones memory card. Then on the phone set your wallpaper from the gallery and select the black image.

That's what I did. I created a 1x1 png file with a #000000 pixel. My Galaxy A7 2018 won't allow it. It said something like image too small. This is just outright silly. As somebody said, even Windows 3.1 has it.

Gimp > New > Width: 1080, Height: 1920 > Bucket Fill > Export As > solid_background.png

The simplest way to create a black image is to keep the phone with camera down on desk (so that no light falls on the camera) and shooting an image.
Then simply set the recently shot image as your wall paper. :)

Disclaimer: I am one of the developers, and super excited to announce that we just published a new app for this!
We focused on making it simple and really good looking to change your wallpaper to a solid color of your choice within the palette of Android Lollipop material colors. You can find the app in Google Play:
Material Colors Wallpaper HD
Have a nice one :)

Very nice! Would have loved to seen a black variant though. Only gray.


text:
How to play/record sound from Debian chroot?
There's big file with ext2 with ARM Debian where I can chroot to.
There's functional mplayer (I can -ao pcm or -vo yuv4mpegpipe) there.
How to record/play sound (or video) from this Debian? Is there things that emulate ALSA/OSS/Whatever to use usual linux programs and android ones side by side? May be there's pulseaudio server for android?

I managed to make it sound by writing to /dev/msm_pcm_out:
mplayer something.mp3 -ao pcm:file=/dev/msm_pcm_out

Sound is choppy and it looks hacky in general.
Video output is something like -vo fbdev:/dev/graphics/fb0.


text:
Nexus S - Can't copy to SD card
When I connect my Nexus S to my computer I can see various files (media, LOST.DIR, DCIM...). If I copy a file here, I can't find it on the file manager (ASTRO) on my phone? How do I access these files on my phone?

Make sure you've disconnected from the computer and the phone has remounted the card, then navigate to /sdcard/ or /mnt/sdcard/.   (On other Samsung phones like the Galaxy S, you would go to /sdcard/external_sd/.)

I cannot see that directory on my phone (using Windows 7 to browse). When I browse to /sdcard/ on my phone, it is empty, so it isn't the same folder I'm seeing on my computer.

@Casebash Hmm, weird.  Have you tried /mnt/sdcard/?  Have you ensured that the SD card was properly remounted by the phone after you disconnected from the computer?

Oh, I need to disconnect from the computer before accessing the card on my phone again

@Casebash Righto. I've updated the answer with that to hopefully help someone else out in the future.  Glad you got it sorted!


text:
Calendar and facebook events and birthdays
I'm using the native calendar in my Android 2.2. I'm also using Simple Calendar Widget but I don't think it has anything to do with my problem.
A few weeks ago everything was perfect. I had synced 3 calendars from the same gmail account and the calendar of my facebook account. So I could see the events in gmail's calendars, facebook's events and facebook's birthdays. Now, for some reason, facebook's birthdays dissapeared.
How can I do to get them back?
I read about exporting facebook calendar, but this way if after importing it in my calendar I add a friend in facebook, it's birthday wont appear, right?
Thanks!

this happened to me too (i'm pretty sure it's because i flashed a different rom ;) ) but an easy fix to get them back would be great! +1!

I'm using the stock rom, not even rooted my phone =/

Is it possible that Facebook changed their API?

I have no idea.. How could I check? (If its possible)

Check that you have the calendar selected: go to Settings -> Accounts and Sync -> [your Facebook account] and make sure Sync calendar is selected. On some phones there might be a builtin Facebook sync which only takes care of the names, so if there is no Sync Calendar option, go to Add account and see if you have Facebook under Integrated contact accounts and More accounts. If so, add the one from More accounts and check Sync Calendar.
Edit: The problem can be fixed by removing and readding both sync accounts, waiting for the phone to remove them in between.

This is something that I've noticed and forgot to explain in my question. It seems to be twice my facebook account. There is one which only has "Contacts" and the other has both "Contacts" and "Calendar", the three checks are checked.

Yep, that's expected, one account is from Android and one is from the facebook app. Now that I looked at my calendar closer I found out that the birthdays are not synced through the calendar but from the contacts and from there to your own calendar on the device. Check that you have synced all your friends from Facebook and that the local calendar (called My Calendar) is not hidden.

My facebook contacts are actually synced and "My Calendar" isn't hidden :/

Can you see people's birthdays in your contacts' details?

No =(.. But I don't know if they were before.. Why could this be?

At least on my phone they are, and they show up in the calendar. Try removing both Facebook sync profiles and wait for the phone to sync them out, then add them again. I remember this worked once back when I was using Eclair.

Yey!! You save me!! I was forgetting every bodies birthday!! Please add this last comment to the answer so it can be easy to find to anybody who's having the same problem


text:
Motorola Xoom "Complete action using" dialog won't display to select an activity
When generating an intent in an application that is supposed to create the dialog popup to choose an activity to complete the action, it simply doesn't show.  I get a darkened screen and no dialog.
For example: click on a YouTube link should popup a dialog asking to use Browser or YouTube (if no default is set).  When I click on this link, the screen darkens like it wants to show a dialog, but it simply doesn't.

Posting this as a self Q&A because it was hard to find info about it and I'm sure it'll happen to someone else.

Solution: apparently there is a bug with this in Android 3.2.  Rotating your Xoom will fix it.


text:
Seeing Huge Amount of Data Usage with Google Music
I have recently purchased the Galaxy Nexus, and I am extremely happy with it. As part of that purchase, I decided to bring all my music into Google Music. So, I've been using Google Music on my way into and home from work (about an hour total a day) and I am seeing a huge amount of data usage from Google Music. (Everything else combined doesn't come close to what it uses.)
Here is a screenshot of my data management window:

Why is this happening? Is there anything I can do to prevent it from heavily using data like it is?

An hour total should use ~144 MB for 320 kb/s music.  Less that double that for 6 days seems perfectly reasonable given that your music is probably not all that quality.  Why do you think it should be less?

@MatthewRead - I guess, based on what I have seen in the past with Pandora, this seems significantly higher. I could listen with about the same frequency on Pandora and it didn't use nearly the same amount of data. Guess I should be glad that I am still grandfathered on the unlimited plan.

OK, I think the answer to your question is that Pandora's stream is never more than 64 kbps for mobile devices, whereas Google Music uses 320 kbps MP3s and there's no downsampling.  That's 5 times the amount of data, assuming Pandora doesn't use a better format than MP3.
Since Google Music transcodes your files, I don't think you have much of an option here.

Thanks, Matt. I was afraid it was something like that. I guess I'll have it download my content on my wireless connection so I can go on long trips without racking up huge amounts of data charges.


text:
How do I speed up media scanning?
When putting new music files or images onto the sd card of my android phone, android needs to scan for new files. Is there any way to speed up this process? E.g. putting all files in one directory? Currently I organized my music this way: music/artists/albums/files.mp3 Any suggestions?

I also have this problem. I am using Musicolet player and there is an option to use Musicolet scanner or system scanner; also there is an option to choose which folders to scan. However scanning is slow. If I have huge audio files, scanning a single file can take minutes. So I wonder does the scanner have to scan each file byte by byte or what takes so long time?

One method is to put a file called .noMedia in the root of every folder that you don't want to be scanned.  It won't improve the scanning of actual media, but it will prevent wasted time searching elsewhere (or indexing things that you don't want indexed, such as app assets).

Just a notice. It won't speed up scanning by a lot. Files with a .nomedia will still be indexed, but not categorized. You may wish to open Media Provider's database and see the table entries.

some of the slowness may be due to the speed of your storage media.
If it's built in storage than there's not much you can do (apart from what Matthew Read suggested)
if it's an SD Card, maybe check that it's not a class 2 or something. perhaps try and get a class 10 to speed things up.
beyond those changes it's down to the device CPU speed

There's no need to organize your files in any other theme. Android is indexing the media file and since api 1.0 player should query the Media Store which is using this index.

I guess you got me wrong. Building up the index is too slow, and I aimed on asking how it can be speed up.


text:
timestamp on messages is wrong

My phone is turned off
11:00 - My friend sends me a text message/sms
2:00 - I turn my phone on.
2:01 - I receive the text message/sms, the timestamp is 2:01
But I want the timestamp to be 11:00

How do I get this to happen? I am on a ZTE Racer on giffgaff in the UK. I have Android 2.1, Eclair.

This has been reported as a bug in the Android source but no particular action seems to have been taken. You can follow and star the issue on the Android bug tracker.
Alternatively, one comment on the bug tracker notes some potential workarounds you an take a look at:

Just an additional comment for all those still waiting for this bug to
  be fixed: current version of Handcent saves the "sent time" of the
  messages. It can be seen on "message details". It's not the perfect
  solution but it's the best solution that we have right now.
"SMS
  Timestamper Fix" from andrperk worked for me most of the times but not
  always.

Additionally, some commenters have reported that certain handsets do not suffer from this bug, presumably because the manufacturer patched it themselves in their messaging application or SMS framework.


text:
How can I ensure that I'm logged out of Google Latitude?
When in Google Maps, when I go into the menu, I see "Join Latitude" option next to Latitude icon.
When I am on Google Latitude web site, it tells me "Location sharing is not turned on"
Does that mean that I am 100% logged out of Google Latitude?
The reason I ask is that I was experiencing major battery drain via Google Maps, and many people on forums heavily recommend signing out of Latitude as a solution. However, it seems that my Latitude is already off.

If you see "Join Latitude" then your latitude options are already "off". If you also now see "location sharing is not turned on", then your account is not set up to share the location information and it will not be sharing the information.
If you don't already, turn off wifi & gps when you are not using them, mpas will be less likely to try and get "pin point" information if you do not have these running.

Thanks! Yes, turning off wifi/GPS helps, but it's an awful solution :(   I'll live with it so far as it's the only one, but DAMN Google dropped the ball on this whole thing big time


text:
Problem with unlocking the HTC Wildfire bootloader with HTC unlocker
I tried to unlock HTC bootloader by the official tool but I get to the stage when I issue the command:
fastboot oem get_identifier_token

Unfortunatly I get error
...
(bootloader) [ERR] Command error !!!
OKAY [  0.007s]
finished. total time: 0.007s

Version of firmware matches the one listed for H3G UK. The HBoot is 1.01.0002.

I think your HBoot needs to be upgraded, and it sounds like perhaps you didn't run the RUU to do so. The HTCdev site notes that phones with an asterisk (*) next to them in the list must run an RUU before unlocking because the bootloader on the device did not originally ship with unlocking capabilities. So first you need to make sure your firmware is up to date (which it sounds like it is), and then you also need to download and run the RUU:

BEFORE beginning the Unlock Bootloader process your product requires
  that you update the ROM to the version listed in the table below
  first, then download the RUU next to it to enable the unlocking
  capability.

The RUU's filename itself also seems to confirm this. It is listed as PC4910000_Buzz_Froyo_hboot_1.02.0000_R3.exe, indicating (to me, anyway) that you need HBoot v1.02.0000 in order to perform the unlock.

Would running RUU may result in any data loss?

@MaciejPiechotka: It will wipe all of your data, basically performing a factory reset.


text:
How can I increase the maximum speaker volume?
Is there a way, maybe even with root, to increase the maximum speaker volume?
I own a Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet, which are known for their crappy and quiet speaker. There are ways to replace the speaker with another one. But I'd like to know a generic, not device related, software based method to increase the maximum volume on Android (if there is one).

There is an app which can do it for you...
Try the free one first, and if it works, then buy the full version :)
Free: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.FREE.android.lvh&feature=search_result
Payed: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.TEST.android.lvh&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5URVNULmFuZHJvaWQubHZoIl0.
Have a great day :)

Was it the right solution for you? Like to know, and if isn't the right answer i like to search some more for you :)

Well, Volume+ seems to need either a Cyanogen Mod or a MIUI ROM. That is both not available on my TPT. But I am aware that this may be only achieved on custom ROMs/Kernels and/or with root. I hadn't the time yet to test it.

It works well on my stock Galaxy Nexus... Sure you have read it correct?

But i think you need root, but i'm not sure, since i always have root :)

Try the 'DSP manager' application from cyanogen community.
Download application heredsp manager for stock ROM's


text:
Using Amazon Instant Video from Amazon Prime on Non-Kindle device
I have an Asus EEE Transformer, and am contemplating an Amazon Prime membership.  One of the nice features is streaming video.  You can play it on computer, TV/DVD/BluRay that support it, or Kindle.
Is there anyway to play on plain Android, like my Transformer?

Yes, you can play Amazon Prime videos using flash in the browser. See this thread.
Per the thread, you may have to remove the stock Flash and install Adobe's official version from the market, as well as the Dolphin HD browser.
You can rent movies from Amazon, which presumably use the same framework as Prime videos. It would probably be advisable to rent a movie to verify it works before investing in a Prime membership.

Poifect!  Thank you!  That is what I wanted to know.

As of very recently, this no longer is possible. Flash for Android is no longer supported, upgraded or offered by Adobe.
There are hacks available for installing older versions of Flash, but given the security holes this opens up, installing an expired version of Flash is probably a really bad idea.

Yep, that's what I said. Amazon wants Apple owners, all the rest can buy the Kindle Fire, despite the Android derivation, they have no interest in releasing the Amazon Instant Video app for use on anything but their own device. Lots of Android based phone users can just go elsewhere, I guess. Hulu Plus, NetFlix, etc. Hopefully they'll get to work on HTML5 video streaming soon, maybe that's their plan.


text:
How can I reset auto-complete dictionary for my Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro?
The stock soft keyboard on Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro has a feature called 'Learn words' (Settings > Language & keyboard > International Keyboard > Text input settings > Learn words) that learns from user input and adds them to the autocorrect dictionary. Over time however this has resulted in many misspelled words also being added to my autocorrect suggestions. I want to start this over from a fresh canvas. So how do I reset my autocorrect dictionary? When I go to Language & keyboard > User dictionary so I'm guessing Sony Ericsson uses its own keyboard replacement with its own user dictionary store.

On my Droid, Settings > Language & keyboard offers a "User dictionary" option, where I can see the words I've added and edit or delete them. Has that been removed from your device?

@AlEverett That menu entry is and always has been blank.

I am looking for the same answer for the Xperia Pro. I guess it is a common issue on all Xperia phones, or at least those with a physical keyboard. Please if you find how to do it, post the answer here, I would much appreciate it.

Best answer I've found so far:

You could try clearing all data from the keyboard.
Menu>Settings>Applications>Running Applications then tap All. Scroll down and find Internation Keyboard (if thats the one you are using) and Clear Data.

Source: Sony Ericsson Support Forum
Of course, it will also set the keyboard to the original settings.
Anyway, I would like to find a way to remove some misspellings and not all the learned words, so if somebody knows how to do it, I will be glad to hear from it.

on my x10 it was Menu > Settings > Applications> Running Services > Default Input but your answer got me 99% of the way there

on my Xperia Ray (ICS) it was Menu > Settings > Apps > All > Xperia Keyboard.

Menu >settings>apps>running application>find Xperia keyboard >settings(xperia keyboard)>text input settings>my words,..choose the word you want to delete or edit,,..  Thats the step that I learned so far
,.,hope helps..

Don't wipe everything. It is possible to delete individual words.
I have the Experia T, I and have just done this:

Open a text
Click to reply so the keyboard pops up
press the 12!? button down-left corner
Go across to the right, and click on the spanner icon
Go in to My Words
Hold your finger down on a word, and down the right of the screen will pop up a box next to each word
Ticking the boxes of the ones you don't want
Hit delete, and they all magically disappear.

goto settings>applications> (select all) > goto user dictionary/message extention/ anything having dictionary or with the Envelop logo. go there and press Clear Data. and u r done


text:
Rootless CLI Utilities
Do I have to root my android device to install command line utilities? I would really like to run Vim, among other programs on my phone. I have no reason not to root my phone, I just want to know if this is possible.
The Android Scripting seems to possibly have done this. Do I have to write my own Terminal app to be able to do this?

You don't need root.  You also don't need a terminal, for an app to use its own private utilities.  But if you want vim, Terminal IDE provides that, a number of other utilities (git, ssh, tmux), the ability to use bash or Java as a 'scripting language' at the terminal, and the ability to create and install Android apps on-device.  I use Terminal IDE and vim quite a bit, (but with Better Terminal Emulator Pro's terminal, actually.)

What's the correct way to run Terminal IDE's bash from "adb shell"? Running it manually "su; /data/data/com.spartacusrex.spartacuside/files/system/bin/bash" leaves a slightly broken env.

Rooting your phone gives you root access (duh!), but that doesn't mean accessing a shell requires you to root your phone.  You can use ADB to connect to your device and gain shell access.
You can also use ConnectBot to access your device's shell on the device itself.
This will give you normal access to your device and you will not be able to run su to gain root access.  You can, however, modify and play with files to which you have access.
vim is available without root access, so, so far you still have no reason to root your phone.


text:
Can I temporarily use device with physical QWERTY in touch only mode?
I am looking for a new phone with a physical QWERTY keyboard (probably a "slide-down" construction). As I do not have possibility to test it, I would like to know, whether I can use the device as a standard touch phone without using the physical keyboard if needed.
How does Android behave when the physical keyboard is not activated (the slide-down phone is folded)? Do I have to manually activate the virtual one or is it automatic?
thanks

Yes, the phone should behave same as without physical keyboard until you open the physical keyboard which will cause hiding the virtual one.


text:
Is it possible to set the language and locale to different values?
I'd like to have all the text displayed in English (US), but use the Polish (Poland) formatting for numbers, dates etc. On a desktop Linux system, I'd set LANG to pl_PL and LC_MESSAGES to en_US. Is there a way to so on Android? I see only combined language+locale setting. Note: I am not asking about the keyboard, I know can set it to use a language different from the language+locale setting without problems.

I've set my phone to English (United States), but then I also customized Date & Time to use Italian format (DD/MM/YYYY). Numbers don't seem to be customizable, plus some apps ignore Date & Time settings and use the ones from the main language, or allow to specify a format.

You can set the date and time format in the settings (system section) -> Date & Time.


text:
Is there a way to trigger hover behavior in the Chrome Beta browser?
Is there any way to trigger the behavior that usually occurs when a mouse is hovered over an element (for example, hovering over your username at the top of a Stack Overflow site) using the Chrome Beta browser?

This doesn't help in the general case, but specifically for your name at the top of StackOverflow sites, you can tap the little down arrow beside your name to trigger the same behaviour.

One way to trigger the hover on links is to long-press the link, wait for the menu to appear, and the press the back button to cancel the menu. This also works in some other browsers.
Note that this doesn't work on all links. Just tried on the example you mentioned, doesn't work, probably because there's a slight delay between the onMouseOver event and showing the menu. But on other pages, where it's a simple onMouseOver trigger this method works.

If you're using a device (usually a tablet) with a USB port, you can plug in a mouse.
The mouse cursor will trigger hover events.

Or a wireless mouse via Bluetooth.

I don't see how the "hover" effect can be practical on any touchscreen device, regardless of OS.
Screens on most current mobile devices (resistive, capacitive) can only register touch events.  You would need to modify the OS to treat a single tap as a mouse pointer, and double-tap as a "click".  However other gestures like scrolling, pinch-to-zoom, etc. would most likely stop working with such a paradigm.
Also, most mobile versions of sites disable the fancy stuff like hover animations anyways, in order to load faster.

I'm finding Chrome on my tablet (Asus Transformer Prime) to be nearly as functional as a laptop; in most cases, I would not choose to use a mobile version of a site.   I think this will be an interesting issue for designers to grapple with -- things like tooltips and the StackOverflow user card are not available to touchscreen users, which is more of an issue for the ux site, but I was curious if Chrome had found some general way to expose this in the touch environment.

This is nonsense (or at least a lack of imagination). It's easy to imagine something like a browser interpreting a two finger tap as "hover here until I tap somewhere else". This would let mobile and tablet users get proper use of those few websites that haven't gone with the times and still rely on hovering behavior.

My phone (Galaxy Note 3) can sense when your finger is near the screen. In the stock browser it shows a zoomed window. This would be perfect for hover but does not currently work in any other browser AFAIK.


text:
Disable all software installation
Is there a way to block (by a password/PIN code or what else) all kinds of software installation on an Android tablet/smart phone?
I understand it is possible to block by a PIN code Market app instalation, but that only works for paid apps, and there are other ways to install applications other than the Market.
Rooting is not a problem.
Thank you!

Unfortunately Android doesn't offer this functionality out of the box.  There are several 3rd-party apps on the Market that can help though.
I personally use App Protector Pro on my son's tablet.  This app allows you to set a PIN and then set up a "block list" of any installed apps, including system ones.  Among other apps, I added Settings and Package Installer to this list.  This presents the "password" prompt upon installation (or un-installation) of any apps, including from alternative markets (Amazon Appstore, GetJar, etc.) and even side-loading APKs.  App Protector Pro itself is also by default set to be on the "protected" list.
Of course if your device is in the hands of a person that is somewhat knowledgeable of Android OS, they can do a bunch of things to circumvent this sort of protection, such as a factory reset from Recovery console, for example.
[5-year Edit]:
Android 5.0 introduced restricted profiles feature. This allows you to block new installs from Play Store, and disable already installed apps for restricted users.  Unfortunately this feature is only enabled for tablets.  Phones still have to rely on 3rd-party "lock" apps, with varying degrees of success.


text:
Dim the back light to low battery level
Even when I set the backlight onto its dimmest, it is still very bright when using it in the dark. However, when you have low battery it appears even dimmer, so I know it is possible to get it to that level.
Is there anyway to set it to this reduced level?
If it makes any difference, I am using a Galaxy Ace (2.3.3).

I'm currently using Screen Filter. It reduces the brightness of your phone below the level of what Android OS provides. Works for me and is a good battery saver. Hope this helps.

Good find thanks :) Working perfectly so far, I also like the fact that I can set it to 50%, then still use the 3-tier brightness settings the stock power control provides. It's a lot easier on the eyes already, and if I get a battery saving then that's a real plus.

Glad to know that it helped :)

You can use Dimmer available on F-droid (an installable catalogue of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) applications for the Android platform).

Dimmer
Lower brightness
Lower the brightness beyond the limit through a filter.
License: Apache2

Current version (3.3.1) apk.


text:
Auto focus not working on Galaxy Nexus
I seem to have lost the auto focus capability on my Nexus. The phone is stock, only one update done (so it's XWKL2). I don't use the camera much, but I think I had auto focus when I first started using the phone. Now I have to manually focus by tapping the screen.
I'd rather not clutter my phone with 3rd party apps for camera since I don't use it much, but I'd like to have AF for my random quick snaps.
Any tips?

Did you try resetting the settings to defaults? There is a reset button in the setting menu (open camera, the setting knob, then the three dots, restore defaults). If that doesn't work, then go to system's Settings and clear application data.

@LieRyan Tried both, didn't change a thing...

These suggestions might seem odd and they might not yield any results but they're worth a shot:

Try using the panorama and video settings in the stock camera, and I do mean actually use them.  Don't just switch to them and switch back to picture mode.  If you're lucky changing modes, taking a panorama/video, then changing back to normal picture mode will reset whatever needs to be reset.
In normal picture mode long-press the shutter button.  Try this twice, one time release the screen as normal and the next drag your finger away from the shutter button before releasing the screen.  I'm not sure if doing it these two ways will have different results, but I know that if you drag your finger away no picture will be taken.

Actually, after taking a panorama shot I noticed a slight AF shift when taking the next picture, but that was it, couldn't reproduce and the AF didn't "lock", just tried to focus but couldn't.

Well that's progress at least.  Are you on Verizon?  I ask because there's a rumor circulating on the tubes that Verizon's Galaxy Nexuses are going to get an update to 4.0.5 some time in April.  With any luck this will correct your problem if you can't figure it out before then.

Nope, I'm Finnish and the phone has no operator customization, pure stock.

The 4.0.5 comes from Google, not Verizon, so there won't be any additional carrier customization.  Still, Google considers 4.0.3 to be "base" ICS.  What version are you running?

I'm running 4.0.2, since 4.0.3 hasn't been officially released over here for some reason.

Yeah, my GN is on 4.0.2 (build ICL53F) as well.  I'm kinda stumped here, man.  I can't think of any reason why your camera's AF shouldn't be working aside from some kind of bad interaction between it and some app you've installed lately.  Have you taken inventory of your apps and tried removing them one at a time if you think they're suspect to test the AF?

Try this, Go to Settings -> Apps -> All Tab -> Camera -> Clear data.

Tried this, still gives just the "tap to focus" option...

Did you try resetting the settings to defaults and rebooting the phone? There is a reset option in the camera setting menu (open camera, the setting knob, then the three dots, restore defaults). If that doesn't work, then go to system's Settings, Applications, "all" tab and clear data.

Yes, tried both of these, didn't help.

What happened with my phone is that the scene selector got set to Landscape by an OS update or someone else fiddling with the phone and I didn't even know that there was a Scene selector. Once I found this setting I found that if I set it back to Auto (or Macro if you want to do a close-up) that the auto-focus starting working again.
Hopefully this helps someone.

And, for our enlightenment, how can others find this setting?

@AlEverett On my phone, I would open the camera (app) and then slide the menu open from the right. There are 4 options, from top: 1. Scene 2. Effect 3. Flash 4. Switch to. Select the first one which is Scene.

Did you clear the camera app data?
To do this:

Open your settings app

Tap the "Application" section

Tap the "All" tab

You can find the camera app. Select -> Clear App Data

If this not works, here is anthoer solution for you!
Reset the camera settings
To do this:

Open the camera app

You can find the camera knob. Press it -> 3 dots menu -> Reset Defaults!

Any help you will accepted!
Thank you so much!
Hope this helps for your Android device!


text:
How can I slow down my phone?
I know it seems like a silly question, but here is the situation: I'm debugging an app and my users have reported a bug on slow devices that I can't see on my fast device.  Is there anything I can do to slow my device down so that I can see the bug for myself?

Have you tried using the emulator to create an AVD with similar specs?

One option - if you have root and a proper custom kernel you can use something like SetCPU to underclock your processor. CyanogenMod also has this functionality built in since at least CM7, don't remember if it's in CM6. That can be found in Settings->CyanogenMod Settings->Performance IIRC. Without root access, I suppose you could try to run some kind of "expensive" process in an attempt to occupy CPU cycles, but its probably not the best of ideas or an accurate portrayal of a slower device.


text:
Is there a way to move installed apps from one device to another?
I have Galaxy Tab 7 inch which has some installed apps and I don't have the APK files. I would like to move the apps to a new Galaxy Tab Plus 7 inch.
Is there a way to move my installed apps from one device to another without reinstalling every app from Android Market?