Tag Archives: Beginner

How To Factory Data Reset Your Android Device?

Now or later everyone will feel that your mobile phone is loaded with loads of unwanted data and may choose to clear that off by removing the apps/data manually and few (lazy) smart people (like me!) would always love to choose the easiest way to wipe the data and it will be nothing other than choosing the “Factory Data Reset” for restoring your device to the factory build settings by wiping off all the data from the internal storage (yup, your data on external storage will be safe unless you format your SD card) along with all the manual settings you have done like date & time, configuring your Google account, system and application data and all other custom settings would be erased as well.

Manual Way: How To Auto Delete Old Text Messages From Android?

The device will be restarted after you select ‘Factory data reset’, your phone/tablet now behave like a brand new one (except for possible wear and tear’s), you just need to follow the onscreen instructions for configuring your device (exactly) like the way you have done for the first time.

Why You Would Like To Do A Factor Reset?

The possible reasons which tend you to choose reset the data to factory settings include:

You may choose to sell your device, and clear off your personal data left over on the phone (just to make sure that the device carries none of your personal information)
Unfortunately your device is stuck with problem and you wish to surrender/give/claim the device to manufacturer for your own reasons.
Strange Behavior of the device, yeah lot of software related issues will get fixed if we reset the phone/tablet.
As I said earlier, your are lazy enough (proud to be) to clear data individually.

TIP: How To Improve Battery Life Of Your Android Mobile?

Precaution: Things To Do Before You Do a Factory Reset

Follow these instructions carefully as they may come handy just in case if you end up with few issues.

Backup..! Backup..! Backup..! Just backup every (important) file from your phone to external PC/Storage.
Move all the paid apps (if any) to your external storage so that you won’t need to buy them again.
Sync all your contacts with your Gmail account or install software PC suite and backup all your contact details.
Make a list of the apps which you would like to install after you complete the “Factory Data Reset”.

Be Smart: How To Take Screenshot With Samsung Galaxy Series Devices?

How To Factory Data Reset Your Android Smart Phone?

For resetting the device to factory build settings and clear off the internal storage completely just follow these step by step instructions and know ‘How To Factory Reset your Android Phone/Tablet?’

First to start with click on Menu –> Settings.

Scroll down and tap on ‘Privacy Settings’ or few phones may also need to check in ‘SD & Phone Storage’.

Now the last step, just tap on ‘Factory Data Reset’ and in the next screen click on ‘Reset Phone’ to complete the process (optionally you may also check ‘Format SD card’ for clearing off the data from external storage card).

Please note that it may take up to 5 to 10 minutes of time to complete the process of factory restore, post the restore you are now all set to configure your (new) device again.

We have taken care of each and every detail that you need to do for resetting the phone to factory data settings, but just in case if you face any difficulty in configuring these options please feel free to use the comments box below, we will glad to help you with the process.

How To Auto Delete Old Text Messages From Android?

1 Reply

With the advent of email & SMS marketing and the increased pace in number of messages exchanged between friends and family, the number of messages in your inbox will keep on growing day by day and heavy load or increase in number of messages in your inbox will result to load the Text Messaging app very slowly and storing excessive number of messages texts in your message box will result in more processing time for opening the Messaging app which in turn will use more power from battery resulting in a quicker drain of power. So it is always recommended to carry less number of messages either by deleting them manually or by doing it in the automated way, yeah your Android device is capable of deleting the old messages from your smart phone automatically..!

Before you wonder and ask me “is it possible to delete messages from inbox automatically from my Android phone?” let me confirm you again, yeah it is possible and all you need to do and follow is to configure your device as mentioned in following steps.

CHECK: How To Know What Version Of Android You Are Running?

How To Automatically Delete Old Texts on Android Device?

Deleting the texts in automatic way is pretty simple, and for configuring that first you need to launch your text messaging app.
Now, click on ‘Menu’ button and then click on ‘Settings’ button.

Under setting, just check the option ‘Delete old messages’ (when you turn-on the setting, just notice the green check-mark to confirm that the option was enabled) and then you are free to set the limit for your text conversations. Although the default value is 200, it is recommended to set a lower number for better performance.

DO YOU KNOW? How To Improve Battery Life Of Your Android Mobile?

That’s it, configuring it is pretty simple and straight forward and you need to do is to enable a setting. In case if you have any issues please let us know your concerns through the comments box.

Happy Android’ing…!

How To Install Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) SDK on Windows?

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ICS is the latest version of Android, and for those who don;t have an ICS powered Android device or for people who would like to check out Android in their local system (Windows Machine), setting an emulator in Android SDK is the best way to run the Ice Cream Sandwich as it helps you in exploring the features of the Android 4.0.

DO YOU KNOW? Key Features of Android Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0 Platform

How To Install & Run Android 4.0 (ICS) on Local PC?

In order to run the Android OS, first you need to install Android SDK in your machine just follow these tutorials for installation & setup of Android SDK.

How To Install Android SDK with GUI Setup? | Android SDK Manual Setup on Windows

After installing the SDK, open the SDK application which will search for the updates as applicable and fetches all the SDK packages that are available for Android.

You will notice “Android 4.0 (API14)” in the fetched packages, just select it and select “Android SDK Platfrom-tool” under ‘Tools’ (refer the screenshot below) and click on ‘Install Packages’.

After you click on Install Packages, a pop-up will then be prompted which asks you confirm the selections and to accept the license terms, just go through them (recommended) and click on ‘Install’ to go ahead.

Wait for few moments for downloading the stuff from Internet and to complete the setup, once everything was set, just click on Tools in the menu bar and click on ‘AVD Manager’ (Android Virtual Device Manager) in the drop down, and in AVD Manager click on ‘New’ in order to create a new virtual device for running Android 4.0 (ICS).

Enter “Android ICS” (optional) in name field and select “Android 4.0 – API Level 14″ from drop down for Target and for the rest follow the setup as selected in the screenshot below and click on ‘Create AVD’.

A pop-up will then be prompted, just click on “OK”, which will create the virtual device that runs Android ICS.

Post the setup, just select the virtual device which you have created now and click on “Start” and click on “Launch” in the followed window.

The pre-booting will start for running Android ICS which will take around 5 minutes of time (for the first time) and once everything gets loaded, Android 4.0 will be loaded and running in the Emulator resulting the welcome Screen.

Now you can start using the Android ICS in the emulator, in case if you stuck with some issues while setting up the Emulator do let us know about the same, we will be glad to discuss your issues and help you in going ahead with the installation.

How To Know What Version Of Android You Are Running?

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Android is the most powerful and #1 mobile operating system and the best part of it is, it is getting better and beautiful day by day with the addition of new and most awesome featured. Besides the features, it is always best to upgrade to the latest version of the software as the latest version will come up the bug fixes that came up in the earlier versions and it is highly recommended to upgrade to the latest version (at the time of this writing it is Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.4) provided your manufacturer supports and provides the official update for the version (for when if your hardware meets the latest software requirements and the manufacturer didn’t release an official update, you can still upgrade using the available custom ROMs released by third-party/freelance developers by rooting your Android device at your own risk).

To Know more about Rooting, we recommend you to go through this write-up: What is Rooting on Android? Advantages & Disadvantages of Rooting

As we said there are multiple versions of Android OS’s available (Cupcake (v1.5), Donut (v1.6), Eclair (v2.1), Froyo (v2.2), Gingerbread (2.3.2), Honeycomb(3.0), Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0.4)) it is very important to know the version of the operating system which your device is running & now getting into the business, follow the mentioned instruction to know about the Android version that your device is running on.

How To Check What Version of Android You Are Running on Your Device?

In order to know the version, click on “Menu” on the home screen and then click on “Settings” button.

Scroll down, and click on “About Phone”.

In the next screen, scroll down to find the “Android Version” on which your device is running.

That’s it, now its time to check for the latest updates as applicable for your device, Good Luck…!

Step By Step Instructions For Installing Android SDK

Setup Guide For Android SDK Installation

Step 1: First download the latest Android SDK from the following link (http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html)

Step 2: After the download, unzip its contents and save it to the root of C:\ (You will get a new folder within C:\ called “android-sdk-windows”)

Step 3: After installation open the android- sdk- windows folder double-click the SDK manager file to launch it.

Step 4: If you are launching the SDK manager for the first time you will be asked for the packages to be installed. Please select the following files which are necessary for SDK installation.

Android SDK Tools, revision 15
Google USB Driver package, revision 4
Android SDK Platform-tools, revision 9

You can reject all the other options if you are not interested in them.

Step 5: Wait for the tools to get installed and close the manager after installation is complete.

Step 6: Now in the Control Panel select System Properties (for Windows XP) or System (for Windows Vista/7).

Step 7: Now select the Advanced settings; Click on the Advanced tab (for Windows XP) Click on Advanced system settings on the left. (for Windows Vista/7)

Step 8: In the next window click on Environment Variables.

Step 9: Now under the “System variable” option double-click the “Path” option.

Step 10: Now within “Variable values” option, input the following path %SystemRoot%;C:\android-sdk-windows\platform-tools;C:\android-sdk-windows\tools.

Step 11: If your Google USB Driver package doesn’t support your device, you can download the following drivers (github.com/gu1dry/android_winusb/zipball/master) and install it. This driver package supports all the android devices. After downloading the file unzip it and copy the android_winusb.inf file to the following path: C:\android-sdk-windows\extras\google\usb_driver\ to replace the existing android-winusb.inf file.

Step 12: In the smart phone make sure to enable USB Debugging by using the following path Settings>Applications>Development.

Step 13: Now connect the smart phone with the PC using the USB data cable.

Step 14: Now in the command prompt type “adb devices”. If the command list device then the installation was successful. If no devices are displayed go back to step 10 to reinstall the drivers.

Step 15: Now right-click on My Computer (for Windows XP) or Computer (for Windows Vista/7) and click on the manage option.

Step 16: In the next window click on the device manager icon on the left side of the window. If the drivers were properly installed you will see “Unknown Device” with a yellow exclamation mark (ADB).

Step 17: Now right-click on the ADB and click on the “Update Driver Software” option.

Step 18: Now click on the “Browse my computer for driver software” and in the next window select the “Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer” option.

Step 19: In the next window click on the option “Have Disk” and then select the “Browse” option.

Step 20: Now navigate to the following path ‘C:\android-sdk-windows\google-usb_driver’ and select “android_winusb.inf”.

Step 21: Please click on the ‘Android ADB Interface’. This will show a popup warning you about the hazards of doing it, simply click on the “Yes” option.

Step 22: After you complete the installation, open the computer’s command prompt and please type “adb devices”.

Step 23: If the command lists any devices, the installation was successful.

That’s it you have finished installation of Android SDK. You can now develop applications for your device and sell them on the Google Play store.

Do let us know if you any help in setting up the Android SDK, we will be glad to help you with the issues that you meet with during the process of Android SDK installation on Windows platform.

Secret Dial Codes of Android To Unlock Hidden Functionalities

Android Dialing Codes To Bring Hidden Functionalities

Dialing Code	Functionality Of The Dialing Code
##4636##	Displays phone information (you are allowed to change things like SMS service number, turning off radio)
27673855#	Factory Restore, will completely wipe out the data from your device (CAUTION)
##34971539##	Displays complete information about the camera
##7594##	You can change the functionality of the POWER button (you can enable direct power off once you enable this feature)
##273283255663282##*	Helps you in backing up your data (media files) in a quick mode
##197328640##	Enables test mode for checking service activity
##232339## OR ##526## OR ##528##	Performs Wireless LAN Tests
##232338##	Displays Wi-Fi Mac-address
##1472365##	Used for performing a quick GPS test
##1575##	GPS test in a different type
##0283##	Performs Packet Loopback test
##0##*	Performs LCD display test
##0673## OR ##0289##	Performs Audio test
##0842##	Performs Vibration and Backlight test
##2663##	Displays touch-screen version
##2664##	Performs Touch-Screen test
##0588##	Performs Proximity sensor test
##3264##	Displays RAM version
##232331##	Performs Bluetooth test
##7262626##	Performs Field test
##232337##	Displays Bluetooth device address
##8255##	Used for performing Google Talk service monitoring
##49862650468##*	Displays PDA, Phone, Hardware, RF Call Date firmware info
##1234##	Displays PDA and Phone firmware info
##1111##	Displays FTA Software version
##2222##	Displays FTA Hardware version
##44336##	Displays Build time and change list number
*#06#	Displays IMEI number
##8351##	Enables voice dialing logging mode
##8350##	Disables voice dialing logging mode
05*#	Helps you in bringing up the Emergency dial screen for unlocking PUK code

Download The List Of Android Dial Codes

Do let us know if some of the codes or not working, so that we can update the list accordingly and maintain it live.

How To Improve Battery Life Of Your Android Mobile?

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Android is the no doubt the best and #1 platform available in the market but do have certain limitations especially for particular mobiles which comes with low-end processors and those which do come along with poor graphic levels (to quote few Samsung Galaxy Y S5360, HTC Wildfire, LG Optimus One will make into this list) and to overcome these issues and increase the performance of the battery you need to spare some time for making few changes to the Android system on your mobile phones.

Note: The following tips are not just limited to the phones which we have specified in the above list, it does valid universally for every Android smart device. Enabling these changes could definitely help you in increasing the battery life.

How To Increase The Performance Of Battery of Your Android Device?

The main things that do consume a lot of battery space include:

Enabling various connectivity options.
Kill unnecessary services that are running in the background.
Brightness Management (using the right level of brightness in settings).
Disabling the background data syncing (Auto Sync Feature).

Disable Connectivity Options That You Don’t Use

This is the first tip which you will meet in the articles that are in relation to battery saving tips and almost all the expert’s will recommend you to turn of the connectivity options which you are not using (at least for those moments). Say for instance you are a person who browses Internet through Wi-Fi at your home, so it would definitely be an energy-saving step if you turn off the Wi-Fi when you are not using or moved out of your home and the same is valid for GPS, Bluetooth as these are things which you need for those moments i.e, Bluetooth at the time of transferring files or getting connected to other devices and GPS while navigating Google Maps.

How To Turn Off Bluetooth, Wi-Fi?

For navigate these options press ‘Menu’ and then select ‘Settings’ –> Wireless and Network Settings.
Then select “Wi-Fi settings” and tap on ‘Wi-Fi’ for enabling or disabling it and similarly select “Bluetooth settings” and tap on ‘Bluetooth’ for enabling or disabling it.

Disable Auto Sync Feature

Auto syncing feature is one of the cool features to have as you there will be benefits like getting notified instantaneously through updates and these are really helpful but the apps like Gmail, Google Talk, Facebook, Twitter needs to stay connected to the mobile data networks (2G/EDGE, 3G) or Wi-Fi every second and enabling these features will drain up the battery sooner and will cost to your pocket as they will be using bandwidths continuously (you can ignore the later if you have an unlimited data plan but when you relate that to battery life this one is big turn off).

How To Disable Auto Sync?

For disabling these features, just navigate to Menu –> Settings –> Accounts and Sync –> Uncheck selections beside ‘Background data‘ & ‘Auto-Sync‘.

Adjust Brightness Levels

One of the major thing which we ignore completely is adjusting brightness levels in our device, the default factory settings will come up with moderate display settings, it is always recommended to go with as low as possible brightness levels to save the battery life. In order to adjust brightness levels you need to navigate to Menu –> Settings –> Display and select “Brightness” and adjust the bar levels for choosing the best (remember the lesser it is, the better the battery performance).

Kill Apps That Are Running in Background

There will be a lot of applications that are running in the background although you will not use them, they use a large share of the available memory so it is always recommended to free up the resources by using third-party apps like “Super Task Killer” or “Advanced Task Killer” or “Task Killer” by ReChild or any other app which serves the purpose to kill the applications which are using huge amount of resources. It is also recommended to uninstall the apps which you don’t need.

CHECK: How To Uninstall Android Applications From Your Android Device?

After going through the above mentioned guidelines, we are pretty sure that you can the maximize the performance of your Android device’s battery. In addition do let us know with the tips or things you do on your Android device to increase the battery life efficiency, we will be more glad to add that into this list.

What is Rooting on Android? Advantages & Disadvantages of Rooting

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What is rooting? Why should you Root your device? Do the benefits of Rooting outweigh the shortcomings? These are some of the most common questions Android owners face. Well to start with rooting is the process of obtaining complete rights and permissions (also called super-user) to one’s Android’s software. Although the flip side is that rooting or modifying the mobile will completely void the manufacturer’s warranty and possibly “Brick” it (Bricking your device means damaging the mobile phone’s software in such a way that the device becomes completely useless, pretty much as useless as a brick.).

Before starting, We would like to clarify that this article is for information purpose only and would like to state that DroidEdition does not recommend anyone to root their Android devices.

What is Rooting on Android?

Rooting is the process under which the Android device owner gets the “super-user” rights and permissions to Android’s software. The extended user privileges, allows the user to load custom software (ROM’s), delete pre-installed apps and increase the efficiency of the device. Rooting of Android devices is similar to the “jailbreaking” of the iPhone mobile. The term rooting comes from the Unix/Linux world and is used to describe a user who has “super-user” rights or permissions to all the files and programs in the operating system. The root user has privileges which allow the user to essentially change or modify any of the software code on the device.

Typically, device manufacturers/carriers such as Samsung, HTC, Motorola, LG and others only give guest privileges when you buy the device. Why do they (manufacturers/carriers) do this? There are many reasons for doing this. They don’t want device owners to explore certain parts of the software which can accidentally damage the device beyond repair. It also allows the companies to easily manage and update all the sold devices if they lock it all down. Moreover, this makes all the users to run the same unmodified version of the phone’s software, which makes it much easier for companies to support the devices. On the flip side, guest privileges locks a lot of potentially useful features.

Advantages of Rooting Android Devices

Super-User Rights

Having super-user rights allows the user to do a number of tweaks, which is not possible in a closed system. Super-user rights enable the user to over-clock and under-clock the device, boosting the performance and battery life. Over-clocking means speeding up the phone’s processor and under-clocking means slowing it down. Over-clocking could be enabled to derive greatest power from the processor for heavy applications, while under-clocking could be enabled to rest the processor for when the screen is off.

Install Custom Software (ROM’s)

Custom software or ROM (read only memory) is the software that runs the device. Rooting allows the user to install custom ROM, which can drastically change the look and performance of the Android device. For example, if a user has bought the device running an older version of Android OS and it is also not getting any new updated versions of Android. With a custom ROM, one can load the latest version of the available Android versions (provided the hardware is compatible) and bring that old device on par with some of the newer ones. There are a variety of ROM’s available in the market, but one of the best place to find custom ROM’s for Android devices is the XDA Developers Forums. The XDA developer community is filled with Smart phone enthusiasts and developers who routinely update latest versions of these apps for the Android platform.

Install Custom Themes

Themes are basically the graphics that appear on any Android device. Rooting allows the user to fully customize his device’s themes based on his interest and choice. There a lot of themes available in the XDA community website.

Tweak Kernel for Improved Speed, and Long Battery Life

Rooting allows the user to modify the kernel (the layer of software code which handles the communication between the hardware and software) to drastically improve the battery life of the device and the performance (response time) of the device. A majority of developers tweak the kernels to boost the battery life, performance and other features.

Update the Baseband for Better Signal and Quality

The rooting of the device allows the user to update the Basebands (Baseband is the device which controls the radio on the device) on the Android device. Updating the device’s Basebands with the latest one, can potentially improve both the signal strength and the quality of phone calls. It becomes useful, when the manufacturer is no longer updating your, outdated device.

Backup of Data and Apps

Rooting allow the user to install custom applications, such as the Titanium Backup, which allow complete backup of the device, including both data and apps.

Other Additional Features

There are a lot of other features, which could be enabled by rooting your device. For example enabling free WiFi and USB

tethering, these services are being charged by certain network carriers.

What are the Major Disadvantages of Rooting Android Devices?

Although there are innumerable advantages of rooting your devices, there are a number of disadvantages, which should be considered before jumping to rooting. Some of the major problems one could face due to rooting include bricking and security vulnerabilities.

Bricking

The most important reason not to root your device is the potential risk of “bricking” it. Bricking your device means damaging the mobile phone’s software in such a way that the device becomes completely useless, pretty much as useless as a brick. Bricking will also void the manufacturers’ warranty and one would need to shell out money to buy a new device.

Security

Rooting the device exposes it to an increased risk of security vulnerabilities. Rooting affects the security restrictions of Android OS and there is no affective way to find out what the application intends to do with the “super-user” access. So far, there are no reported problems of malicious software on rooted devices. Still installing Anti-Virus and Security App is recommended to keep your device safe.

Is it Possible to Unroot Android Device?

One of the most common questions arising in any reader’s mind is whether one can un-root his device? Yes, un-rooting could be done and apps are available on Google Play to un-root rooted devices.

How To Take Screenshot With Samsung Galaxy Series Devices?

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Capturing screenshots is always a problem with un-rooted Android devices as most of the devices need you to root the device to enable the ability of capturing screenshots, we are glad to say that Samsung Galaxy series mobile phones (which includes Galaxy S, Galaxy S II, Galaxy S III, Galaxy Y) have addressed this problem and have come up with a solution by adding this feature right into their pockets and by enabling the screenshot capture.

How To Capture Screenshot On Samsung Galaxy Series Mobile Phones?

In order to capture the screenshot of a particular screen just hold the BACK button (the center button of the mobile) and in a second hold the POWER button (please keep in mind that holding the BACK button for a longer will bring the task manager’s pop-up).

Voila, you are done with capturing the screenshot and it is very simple isn’t it..?

Alternative Method

If the above method didn’t worked for you for various reasons which includes the timing you have to keep up in pressing the buttons, just hold down the HOME key and then press the POWER button or simply hold the BACK button and press the HOME key twice as these actions are configured as the hot key combinations for capturing the screenshots either of these two alternative ways will work and help you in getting the screenshots.

Do let us know if you still face any issues with this actions, our team will help you in handling the job as desired by you.

How To Uninstall Android Applications From Your Android Device?

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We have thousands of apps to choose from to power and enhance the functionality of the Android smart phone, few for killing time and few for increasing productivity and hence there are a lot of options left for us to install all these applications. But initially when we find an app the first thing we will do is, install it and check for its functionality and if we like it we will keep the same but if we didn’t we will look out for an option to remove it and try the alternative ones. In this guide we will help you out with the ways which are available for Android to uninstall and remove those particular applications safely from your Android mobile phone/tablet.

Although we have various ways to remove apps from your Android environment in this tutorial we will discuss about the best two ways to remove/uninstall apps from your phone.

Uninstall Apps Through Android Market Google Play Store

First open Play Store app on your device.
After you open the app, click on ‘Settings’ and then select ‘My Apps’.
The above action will list all the installed apps in your device, just scroll down and select the app which you would like to uninstall and just tap on that.
Now in this screen you see options like ‘Open’ and ‘Uninstall’, now press on ‘Uninstall’ which will be there on the right upper side of the screen.

The Play Store app will handle the un-installation process and the selected app will be removed completely from your device along with the data it has stored on your device.

This is the most traditional way to handle the uninstallation process of the apps and remove them completely from your device without any trace outs.

How To Uninstall Apps Using Android Applications Menu

Navigate menu on your device and press on “Settings” button.
Scroll down and select “Applications” and in the next screen select “Manage Applications”.
Select the app which you would like to uninstall and click on it.
Before uninstalling, just press on “Clear Data” and post that select “Uninstall” to complete the un-installation of the app.

Wait for the process to complete and now the app is completely removed from your Android system.

Hope you guys succeed in removing the apps which you don’t want to have after following the above guide/tutorial, do let us know if you come across with any errors and we will be more glad to help you out with the process.

Good Luck, Happy Android’ing…!