~**~ PLEASE READ ME FIRST! Android Things to Know! ~**~
First, if you're new to our forums, welcome!
In addition to the very popular subjects you see in sticky threads here, there are lots of other interesting and important things that come up frequently about Android.
We hope that this sticky thread will act as your guide to our Android Lounge.
Here are a few of the things that we've selected that may be helpful to you and might answer questions you have -
We'll be updating this list as we go along. Got a thread that you think should be in this list? Simply use the !Report button next to the first post in the thread you think is needed here (recurring problems with repeated solutions) and let us know it's a good candidate for this list.
And this is very important - from time to time, we'll move your posts and questions around, either within this forum, or to another forum altogether.
This does NOT mean you did anything wrong at all.
We simply do that so you can find the best answers to your questions in the fastest manner that we know how.
Here are some other places to look for answers around here on our forums -
Cheers and thanks for joining us - and a special thanks and shout out to all of the great members here helping others out. Whether old or new, you've made our site what it is today - Android's largest and oldest self-help site.
- Fix micro USB cables
- Copy your ROM
- Clear cache/data for an app
- Moving apps to SD (via ADB w/o root or Shell w/ root)
- Create a .nomedia file in Windows
- Check which apps are using the battery
- Common things that drain battery
- How to get to the settings in Honeycomb
- How to import your phone/SIM contacts to your gmail account
Last edited by alostpacket; February 22nd, 2012 at 05:36 PM.
Reason: added some stuff from guides sticky
The Following 22 Users Say Thank You to EarlyMon For This Useful Post:
Settings > Applications > Manage Applications > All > Then find the app and click "Clear Cache" or "Clear Data". Clear data will clear out all settings, logins, save games, etc. Clear cache will just clean the cache out that may be causing problems.
A quick guide on how to make a copy of your rom. Can be helpful for advanced debugging, or starting into ROM development. Recommended by AF Moderator twospirits Index of /romdump
How to turn on USB Storage:
How to clear cache/data for an app
Important: 97% of the time you should never need to clear cache. Cache is a good thing that speeds up your phone. This is a step to take only AFTER an app is not performing correctly and restarting the app does not fix it.
Important: be sure to change the "Save as type" option to All files (*.*)
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2) Make sure to remove the .txt from the name if Windows added it -- it should just be named .nomedia not .nomedia.txt -- Windows will most often add .txt by default.
If the file icon looks like a text file icon, then you probably need to rename it and remove ".txt" from the name. It should show the "unknown file type" generic looking icon.
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2a) Sometimes Windows will hide the file extension too.
To show a file extention in Windows, open a folder and go to the "Tools" menu, then "Folder options", click the "view" tab, and make sure "hide extensions of known file types" is unchecked (usually checked by default). Then click [Apply to folders] at the top. This will apply the change to all folders so you can see extensions on all files.
This is also a helpful way to see what types of files are on your PC.
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3) Connect your phone to your PC and select "mount sdcard" or "open as folder" or "open as storage" or "usb connected" or something similar from the drop-down notifications on your phone.
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4) Drag and drop the .nomedia file to your phone and put it in the folder you want the gallery/music db to ignore. This should make the gallery/music db ignore all subfolders as well.
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How to check which apps are using the battery
To check how much an app is using the battery:
(from your phone's home screen) Menu > Settings > About Phone > Battery use
Usually the apps at the top should be something like:
Any weak signal will cause battery loss. When a phone/tablet detects a weak signal, it will send more power to the radio to boost its ability to connect to that signal (I think).
Similarly any drop from 4G->3G will cause the phone/tablet to look for a 4G connection, also causing battery drain for sure. The same is true for WiFi -- if the connection gets dropped, the phone/tablet will work a little harder to find it.
Best bet is to use something like Tasker and/or some widgets to really control when any battery draining activity is taking place.
Battery draining activities include:
-The screen being on
-3G/4G
-WiFi
-Bluetooth
-Background data sync
-Any large data transfer or frequent screen redrawing (eg the surfing the web with the browser)
-Zynga games <- kidding.....mostly
How to get to the settings screen in Honeycomb
To get to settings: tap the time/clock on the lower right of the bottom bar, then tap the settings icon, then tap settings again at the bottom of the "short list" of settings. This should bring you to the complete settings page.
How to get the Power Control widget
Instead of telling someone about "task killers" or advanced battery saving apps like Tasker, a good first place to start off someone new to Android is to show them the Power Control widget
Long press on a 4 space wide, 1 space tall (4x1) area of one of your home screens
Then select widgets > (android widgets)* > Power Control
*(some phones will have you select "android widgets", others will not)
This will let you easily turn on an off some of the big battery killing features of the phone.
There are more advanced things to do also, but this is a great place to start off anyone new to Android.
It should look like this:
From left to right:
WiFi | Bluetooth | GPS | Background Data (sync) | Bightness (has multiple levels)
How to sync phone/SIM contacts to your gmail account
1. Disconnect the phone from the PC
2. Open The Phone Book
3. Hit Menu
4. Import/Export
5. Export to SD
6. Select PHONE or SIM account (dependant on where you store your numbers)
7. Wait for the .vcf file to be created (it should be created on the root of the SD Card, not in any folders).
8. Connect the phone to the PC as a Disk Drive
9. Copy the .vcf file you just created on to the desktop of your PC.
10. Unmount/Disconnect the phone from the PC
11. Log into the gmail account associated with the phone in your browser
12. Hit Contacts (in the top left hand side of the page)
13. More Actions
14. Import
15. Select the file you've just copied to your PC, let it upload
16. Click Contacts again, you should see the contacts from your phone listed.
17. Perform a Sync on your phone, it will download the contacts to your phone again so you'll end up with a few duplicates, but after your phone sorts itself out, then they'll link themselves.
~**~ PLEASE READ ME FIRST! Android Things to Know! ~**~
