Categories
Android Hardware Solutions

Galaxy Ace – Gingerbread Update – Notes

Image representing Android as depicted in Crun...
Image via CrunchBase

There are many good tutorials on the web about installing Gingerbread on the Ace (like this one).

Once you have Gingerbread installed what can you expect from your new system?
Other than the already present updates to Android, here are a few notes I made:

  • The Default language at the start is not English. To change, go to Settings -> Locale and Text (recognizable by the keyboard key A as the logo) -> Select Language (Option no. 1 in the list) -> English (or any other language)
  • The battery lasts longer and is estimated more accurately. – The battery info is more detailed too.
  • The Wifi bug that caused the “black screen of death” problem is fixed. Expect more stability while using Wifi
  • The UI is faster and more responsive
  • Fonts are crispier and look great
  • The notification bar is smaller and that really helps screen real estate.
  • Internal memory usage has improved leaps and bounds, expect lesser problems in that area

All in all the upgrade to Gingerbread has been perfect so far.

Note: The version I have installed is XXKPH

Categories
Android Apps

Using Phone LED As FlashLight: Android

One of the most attractive features of my Galaxy Ace is its LED Flash. This bright light can be used as a torch when needed, unfortunately there is no default app available to make it work.

Whats worse? I could only discover a single app that made this operation possible.  The app goes by the name “Tiny Flashlight + LED” and is available in the Android Market.


The app also provides a handy widget that allows you to turn on the torch right from the home screen


The creators of the app say that it works with these phones:
Samsung Epic 4G Galaxy S II S2 SII GS2 GSII Tab 7.0 8.9 10.1 Ace Cooper Fascinate Moment Acclaim Transform Mesmerize Charge Behold 7500 Moment, LG G-Slate Ally Apex GW620 KH5200 EVE Shine Plus Optimus 2x G2x Speed, Motorola XOOM Atrix 4G Droid Bionic X 2 i1 Pro R2D2 Backflip Cliq XT Milestone Defy, Nexus, N1, Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 X3 Neo Pro Play Arc, HTC Incredible G2 Desire HD HD2 EVO Shift 3D myTouch Slide Wildfire Legend Thunderbolt Inspire Sensation Merge, Bright Flashlight, Dell Streak 2.1, Sharp IS01 JN-DK01 SH-10B Lynx IS03 SBM003SH SBM005SH, Pantech Vega SKY X, Sanyo Zio, Toshiba Regza T-01C, bright flashlight, bright led, Garmin Asus A10, Huawei Ideos X5 U8800, Archos Coby Kyros 7015 LED, Acer Iconia A500.

Download:
[qr]https://market.android.com/details?id=com.devuni.flashlight&feature=search_result[/qr]



Categories
Android Apps

How to Fix the “Could Not Install On USB Storage Or SD Card” Error – Android

Android Market
Image via Wikipedia

The “Could Not Install On USB Storage Or SD Card” error on Android phones apparently occurs when something goes wrong with the installation of an app and temp file is left on your Android OS. There is a work around and a fix for this problem.

The Work Around:

  • Unmount your SD card
  • Install the app
  • Mount your SD card
  • Move the app to the SD card
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The Fix:
Note: I suggest you backup your sd card before you try this method. It worked perfectly on my Galaxy Ace but there is no guarantee that it might not cause any data loss.

  • Connect your phone to your PC as a mass storage device
  • Backup important data
  • Find the folder named “.android_secure”
  • Inside it, delete the file called “smdl2tmp1.asec”
  • Disconnect your phone
  • Install the App you were trying to install

Hope this helps you 🙂

Categories
Android

Set Contact’s Default Picture/Name/Number In A Single Shot – Android

Android robot logo.
Image via Wikipedia

One of the best features of Android is its ability to merge your social networking accounts with your contacts. By doing that it brings all the information needed by you to a single place and makes it extremely easy to communicate by centralizing your contacts.

But on the flipside, it becomes extremely irritating when you realize that a contact has multiple userpics for different services and your phone has picked the random animated image as the default.

So how do we fix this problem and select the right default image for a contact?

Fortunately there is a simple way to specify the Default Picture/Name/Number/Email for a contact.
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To change the default information of a contact do the following:

  1. In your contacts page (where you have the list of your contacts) long press a contact that you want to change.
  2. When the menu comes up, press select “Mark as Default”
  3. Now you will be given a list of options for the Contacts details.
  4. Select the default in each section and hit save
Categories
Android Apps

3 Apps For Logging Runs – Android

There are a lot of health and fitness apps out there for Android devices. I have been actively trying out different apps to log my daily runs and found only a few apps fit the bill. Seeking a fine balance between versatility, stats, fancy graphs and motivation; I narrowed down my favorites to the following:

  1. My Tracks
  2. Run Free
  3. Run Keeper

Continue reading “3 Apps For Logging Runs – Android”