Several Tecnhiques for Android Phone (Google G1/HTC Magic/HTC Hero/Samsung Galaxy)

During the daily use of Android phone we have encountered problems and we actively sought solutions, and here we now give you several tips on your Android phone according to our experience:

Custom ringtones/alarms/notification sounds
- You can enable custom ringtones, alarm sounds, notification sounds by simply making folders in your SD card:
Telephone ringtones: /ringtones
SMS/MMS/other notifications: /notifications
Alarms: /alarms

Ringtone file format
- Android supports mp3 format for ringtones, but you can't use any mp3 music as notification or alarm sounds, you

will have to use ogg or wav files.

How to not scan voice files/navigations/recordings in music player
- To avoid all media files from getting scanned by a player, make a file called .nomedia and put it onto the folder. But if you put that file into your ringtones folder, you can't set your custom ringtone as well.

- Having problem making a .nomedia file in Windows because it forces you to make a

file name? Try this:
Program File -> Accessories -> Notepad : Now you are in the Windows Notepad
File ->Save As : Now you get prompted on file name/type, enter these:
File Type "All types" -> Enter ".nomedia" on File Name -> Click Save
You will see the .nomedia in the background

How to share internet connection
- You can share the connection of the phone to your laptop/desktop computer by USB cable. Such sharing is also known as "tethering". To do this you will have to
1) install the driver into the computer (should be bundled with the phone in a CD or in the micro-SD card).
2) go to your Android phone: Settings -> Wireless controls -> Tick the box in Mobile Network
3) connect your Android phone to the computer with a USB cable.
You can also achieve tethering by wi-fi, yet we do not recommend wi-fi tethering - you will have to root your phone first (rooting is not for new users and can brick phones ), plus this will consume battery really fast and make your phone hot.

How to add multipe Google accounts / how to change the Google account linked to your Android Phone
- Sadly, a Google phone doesn't support multiple Google accounts. You will have to sign out in order to sign in for another account.
Settings->Applications->Manage applications->Google Apps->Clear Data

Android app recommendation 2 - Locale

Phone modes isn't quite covered by an Android handset - sure you can set to flight mode to disable all connections, but apart from that, other modes are not easy to come by, so a third-party app is necessary to make Conference Mode, Work Mode and Outside mode etc...

With Locale, a free Android app found on the Market, we can set up different situations with appropriate settings, take our example below, we set the ringtone into silent during sleep hours, disable wi-fi when battery is low, and change ringtone from pop-songs to generic rings.

We can set different criteria on each situation according to one or a combination of the five settings:

Battery - triggers at below or above certain % of battery, or depends on if the handset is charging

Calendar - triggers when you have certain event in your Google Calendar

Contact - triggers when specific person of your contact list called, mute them,

Location - detects your location, draw pins on map, triggers if you are in the range

Time - triggers in a specific time of day and/or day(s) of week

When the criteria is met, we can change the certain settings:

Display - Changes the brightness and time-out of idle screen

Network - Switches Bluetooth and wi-fi on or off

Notification - Notifies you that the mode has changed

Ringtone - Changes the default ring-tone

Volume - Changes the volume of ringtone and notifications

Wallpaper - Changes your wallpaper

Android Market Keyword - Locale

Official Site: http://www.twofortyfouram.com/

Android app recommendation (1) - NetCounter

We have received the HTC Hero from Germany (computeruniverse.net) and have been loving the machine. In addition to the very people-centric interface of HTC Hero, of course we install more apps from Android Market for maximize fun. From today on, we will introduce to you some free apps we use and worth recommending to users of any Android phone, Google G1, HTC Magic, HTC Hero, Samsung Galaxy etc.

We take the Network Traffic Counter as our first post in the series. This freeware is capable of keeping track of the actual data usage of the phone, which makes NetCounter a must if you have limited data usage.

Apps Market Keyword: NetCounter

Picture 1: Breakdown of usage of today, 7 days, and monthly. Tapping any stats will show the Received and Sent data.

Picture 2: Menu -> Export to csv will make a detailed .csv delimited usage file in your SD card. (csv files can be opened with text editors like Notepad or spreadsheet program like Excel, you can even view csv file in your browser.)

Comparison Table: (Hero) Dream vs Magic vs Hero vs (Samsung) Galaxy

Computeruniverse coupon code

New customers to computeruniverse.net, one of the largest online shop for computer / technology products can enjoy €5 off for their first purchase (valid only for orders above €50). Note: If you are outside EU region, you can save the 17.5% VAT.

Just quote this voucher code: FW8TY5K at checkout.







Still awaiting for the shipping of our order of two HTC Heros. Hopefully they will arrive by Thursday or Friday :)

Never buy from Expansys! Bad shopping experience for HTC Hero

Europe has the release of HTC Hero first, Orange and T-mobile were the first operators offering the phone. We decided to get a phone for extensive testing.

We quickly placed a pre-order from Expansys UK, and the order was quickly expired with their rep' asking us to buy in Expansys Hong Kong instead. We followed their advice and pre-ordered in Hong Kong for HK$4,812 excluding shipping.

After the launch delay, when the product was finally available (more than one week after Orange's Hero Graphite was available, one week after T-mobile's white version was available, Expansys Hong Kong had been raising the price from $4,812 (no VAT in Hong Kong) to $4,868 to $4,951 to $5,231 to 5,332 as of 5 August 2009.

Expansys contacted us thru email and said they cannot offer the product for $4,812, which was clearly a lie, since Expansys UK has been selling at 347.82 pounds (ex VAT) with 30 pounds voucher rebate. One of their rep' called Agnes Chan had said ". . . we can lower the price to HKD4,812 . . .", implying the offer is a boon to us and we should be very appreciated for their "kind" offer. And this Agnes Chan subsequently ate her words and said minimum price must be $5,000. We have immediately replied her email with her own email clearly indicating that they agreed to sell at $4,812.

Another rep called Chilli Kum (weird nice name by the way) insisted that the price was a very low price (which is not), and urged us to confirm the order with that offer. Meh. We urged them back to make sure they expire our order, instead of holding our credit card charges in the "pending confirmation" status. We are preparing the documents to follow up the case in Consumers' Council, and of course, WE RECOMMEND READERS NOT TO ORDER FROM EXPANSYS.

Then we turn to computeruniverse.de, a German site selling electrical gadgets. We had heard about this company from users who bought some Sagem phones which were otherwise unavailable to Hong Kong (As a side note, the distributor in Hong Kong for Sagem mobiles was closed down.), and the user had very good comments on this company in terms of shipping time and product choice, we decided to give it a try.

We have just ordered an HTC Hero weiss (White) and an HTC Hero silbergrau (Silver) (Quote coupon code: FW8TY5K for €5 off), and no VAT to countries outside EU means we save 75 euros on the price, offsetting the extra shipping charges incurred. We will update this blog to recommend ComputerUniverse if we receive the product in satisfactory condition.