Samsung Galaxy S III
is undoubtedly the hottest selling smartphone right now. The third
phone of the Galaxy series, Galaxy S III packs in a plethora of new
features on top of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.
Unfortunately, this time, Samsung has decided to strip out support for USB Mass Storage mode in favor of MTP (Media Transfer
Protocol) for some unknown reasons. The fact that MTP allows
simultaneous use of data on the phone and PC could be a possible reason.
Steps to Enable USB Mass Storage Mode in Samsung Galaxy S3
Meet SGS3 Easy UMS app that enables USB Mass Storage mode in Samsung
Galaxy S3. The app basically executes a command to make the external
microSD card to be available as a UMS. This has been tested to work on Windows, but it may or may not work on other systems (Linux, Mac etc.).
This app requires your phone to be rooted.
To enable USB Mass Storage on Samsung Galaxy S3, follow the given steps:
1. Download SGS3 Easy UMS app from the following link. It’s a tiny 8.8KB file:
2. Transfer it to your phone using a data cable or Filepush app.
3. Launch the app and tap on the UMS mode button.
You will now be able to mount your external SD card as a removable disk on your PC. To revert back to MTP, simply tap on the MTP mode button in the app.
Credits for this creating this USB mass storage for Samsung Galaxy S3 app goes to an XDA Developers member, Kopfgeldjaeger.
The Android-X86 project provides Android optimized for X86 so you can install Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich on your netbook or laptop just like any other OS.
Android-x86 4.0.4 RC2, based on Android Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.4 has been released today with a few exciting changes, like an ARM translator that lets you run some ARM applications on Android-X86.
Changes in Android X86 4.0.4 RC2 (since Android-x86 4.0 RC1):
Kernel 3.0.36 with more drivers and bug fixes.
Enable Dalvik JIT compiler support which should make apps faster
Support some 3G modem.
Ready to run arm translator. (You still need to install Intel’s libraries manually)
Physical keyboard layout selection.
Support two cameras.
Fake SD card is replaced by internal storage support.
Since the latest Android-X86 uses an ARM translator, not all ARM applications will work, for instance, Google Chrome won't work. Angry Birds (as well as Amazing Alex) on the other hand, worked in my test using a custom Android-X86 build in VirtualBox, though it was kind of slow (probably because of VirtualBox):
I'm sure there are readers who are wondering if Netflix works with this new Android-X86 release, but unfortunately I can't answer to this question because Netflix doesn't work in my country so if you try Netflix with Android-X86 4.0.4 RC2, let us know if it works in the comments!
Get ARM translator to work in Android-X86 4.0.4 RC2
To get the Intel ARM translator working in the latest Android-x86 4.0.4 RC2, you need to download 3 libraries from Buildroid and copy them into the system folder (so make sure you select to install the /system directory as read-write while installing Android-X86!):
Download the arm libs, extract the downloaded archive and copy the files to/system/lib/arm/
Download for VirtualBox
The official Android-X86 builds do not have Ethernet support, so you won't have an Internet connection while running Android-X86 in VirtualBox. You can, however, use a custom Android-X86 4.0.4 RC2 build that adds Ethernet support: DOWNLOAD (thanks to Ron M for this build!).
This build has the ARM translator libraries build-in. This is a debug build so a red frame is displayed sometimes - the only way to avoid this is to compile Android-X86 from sourceand apply the Ethernet patch yourself (or search for a different Android-X86 4.0.4 RC2 ISO with Ethernet patch).
Important: if the mouse isn't working, select from the VirtualBox menu: Machine > Disable Mouse Integration.
Download Android-x86
Android-x86 4.0 has been tested / it should work on AMD Brazos (MSI 110W), Asus EeePC or some Asus laptops/tablets and Tegav2 / Viewpad 10. These are the officially supported devices, but Android-x86 should work on others too. An old list of supported devices / hardware can be found HERE.
It’s been quite a while that Samsung Galaxy ACE S5830 users didn’t get an all new upgrade version of Gingerbread 2.3.6. So, in the due course of this article we will be checking out on how you can install the latest firmware version of XWKTM which is officially released for the Spain users by Samsung Electronics. Since this one is a boot loader free update, one can easily update the device with the help of this update manually. Unfortunately, Samsung won’t be coming out with an Official ICS Android 4.0 firmware update for Galaxy ACE.
Disclaimer: We should not be held liable for any damage caused in the process of updating Samsung Galaxy ACE S5830. It is very unlikely that your device will be damaged if you follow all the instructions to the point which are mentioned in procedure.
Note down your current firmware version from “Settings > About Phone” so that you can revert to that particular version at any point of time. Also, the best part is that applying this update won’t root the device in any manner. Just in case if your device is already rooted, then the root access will be revoked and you can reclaim the lost warranty.
Backup all your data like SMS Contacts, Call Log, Images, Music and other core data manually with the help of below mentioned instructions. Don’t use KIES to back up the data. Also, it’s recommended that all the target backup files should be copied to your desktop so that if your phone gets completely formatted, then too you can restore the data easily.
SMS – Use “SMS Backup & Restore app”, Contacts – Sync with the Gmail application, Call Log -Call Log and Restore Images, Songs, Videos, Files – Copy to internal / External SD Card, APN and MMS Settings – Note down from the path “Applications > Settings > Wireless and Network > Mobile Networks > Access Point Names”
KIES Mode in your device should be enabled from the path “Settings > Wireless & Network > USB Settings > Samsung KIES”. Apart from this, you also need to enable the USB Debugging Mode in your phone from the path “Settings > Applications > Development > USB debugging”
Uninstall or Disable all the security suites installed in your computer & Phone as these tools interrupt the firmware update process.
So assuming that you have followed all the instructions mentioned above, it’s now time for you to proceed to the next step where we have summed up a detailed tutorial on how to apply this update.
Procedure to Update Galaxy ACE S5830 with XWKTM Gingerbread 2.3.6 Firmware:
Download Odin and XWKTM Firmware Package from here to your computer. Extract both the zip files in your PC and then open the Odin in your computer. Match the extracted files with the below mentioned image.
The download mode in Galaxy ACE S5830 can be entered by pressing down on Volume Down Key + OK button, and holding both simultaneously press the Power Button. If device boots up in normal mode, then you need to again try entering the device in the download mode.
Once the device is booted in the download mode, connect your phone to the computer with the help of original USB cable. Assuming that Odin is opened, you will see that the ID : COM section in your Odin turns Yellow which will indicate that all the drivers have been installed successfully.
Now, all you need to do is to just click on “OPS” tab to select “Cooper_v1.0.ops”, tick mark on “One package” option. Up next, you will have to select the file “S5830XWKTM_S5830OXXKT3_S5830XWKT7_HOME.tar.md5” by clicking on “One Package” tab.
Now, click on “Start” tab to start the process of firmware update and once the firmware update is done, the device will be rebooting. It will take around 4 – 5 minutes for the device to apply this update. Once you see that the Language settings are being asked, you can disconnect the phone and turn Off so that it can be then entered in the recovery mode.
Recovery mode in Galaxy ACE is entered by pressing Menu Button, and holding this you need to press the Power Button. Once you enter into the recovery mode, choose the options Wipe data/factory reset and also you need to select Wipe Cache partition and then reboot your device by selecting reboot system now for rebooting the device.
Note: If the Odin gives error at param.fs or say at any point then you will have to reboot your computer and try applying the process from the start. Ensure that you have installed all the latest possible drivers of your phone. Also, KIES should be the latest version.
So there you go, you have now successfully applied the update of Gingerbread 2.3.6 Firmware dubbed as XWKTM in your device. Do let us know in the comments section if you face any issues as we will try our level best to fix the same.
Since the beginning, Android has felt slower and clunkier than Apple's iOS. There's always a slight lag with today's touchscreen devices, but it was especially noticeable on Android. Scrolling through web pages or swiping around the home screen was a stuttery, jerky experience.
In a few weeks, Google will release its new version of Android, named Jelly Bean, that fixes many of those problems. In fact, it's just as smooth and as fast as iOS is.
Finally.
Smooth Like Butter
At first glance, Jelly Bean is nearly identical to Ice Cream Sandwich, the current version of Android that Google released late in 2011. Many of the new features in Jelly Bean are either under the hood or improvements to the overall aesthetics of the operating system.
Jelly Bean is a lot faster than older versions of Android because of something Google calls "Project Butter," a system of slick animations and speed improvements that make the OS a delight to use. Now Android can predict where you're going to swipe your finger next and animate the screen to reflect that.
I've been using Ice Cream Sandwich almost since it first launched, and I noticed the difference in Jelly Bean right away. It's not an Earth-shattering improvement in speed, but it's enough to make you think, "Wow, this feels just as good as the iPhone."
The new animations look great too. Now you can rearrange your home screen's apps and widgets by dragging them around. Other icons and widgets pop out of the way, similar to the way apps move around on the iPhone. (I think the animation is slicker on Android, however.)
I'm also a fan of the updates to Android's notifications menu. I've always thought Android does notifications better than iOS, and the improvements in Jelly Bean simply crush what Apple has been able to do. Instead of just a simple notification, you can perform a variety of actions like sharing photos on social networks and responding to Foursquare checkins without opening a separate app.
Google also added a new offline mode to Google Maps, which lets you download an entire city or region to your phone. This is huge for international travelers who don't want to pay out the wazoo in data plans. If you're going on a trip overseas, just download the map of your destination ahead of time and you're good to go.
Google Now
Screenshot
Perhaps the most important new feature in Jelly Bean is Google Now, the voice-powered search assistant that appears to be Android's answer to Siri. Unlike Siri, Google Now focuses on search, which I've found to be much more useful. The app uses Google's "Knowledge Graph" to come up with the single best answer to your query. If that's not what you're looking for, you can still scroll through the regular Google search results. But Google Now is more than just a search tool. It essentially acts as your brain, giving you updates on your flight information, meeting times, and even scores for your favorite sports teams. These updates show up as cards within the Google Now app, giving you the latest information. (You also get an alert in your phone's notifications menu.)
Here are a few real-world examples of how Google Now has helped me over the last week:
About an hour before a meeting, Google Now sent me a notification telling me to leave so I could make it on time. It even took traffic into account and offered to navigate me to my destination with Google Maps.
Based on my Google searches, Google Now knows I'm a Mets fan. I now get automatic updates on scores for every game. I can even ask it "When is the next Mets game?" and get the answer.
Since public transportation is built in, Google Now tells me when my train is about to leave so I can make it to work on time.
Best of all, Google Now is insanely fast. Whereas searches on Siri can take several seconds depending on how Apple's servers are doing that day, Google Now returns results almost instantaneously, just like a normal Google search on the desktop. Impressive.
The Downside
Jelly Bean isn't perfect.
While Google did a great job at sprucing up the look and feel of the operating system, the same can't be said about the offerings in its Google Play store, where the company sells apps, movies, books, and magazines.
Android apps still tend to look a lot worse than their iPhone counterparts. And developers still tend to make the latest and greatest apps for iPhone first before moving on to Android. Plus, with so many different devices running Android these days, not all apps work on every phone. For example, the HBO GO app is incompatible with my Galaxy Nexus running Jelly Bean.
Content offerings such as music, movies, TV shows, and magazines in Google Play aren't as good as Apple's or Amazon's either. You won't find music from Warner Music. You won't find TV shows from CBS. You won't find magazines from Time. Google Play is a lot better than it was just a few weeks ago, but it still needs a lot of work to match its rivals.
Finally, as great as Jelly Bean is, the sad truth is most people probably won't get to try it for a long time. Jelly Bean will only be available on the Galaxy Nexus, Nexus S, and Nexus 7 tablet at first. It's up to Google's carrier and hardware partners to bring it to other phones. And as history has shown, that could take several more months.
The TRAI(Telecom Regulatory Authority Of India) is imposing very strict regulations nowadays and the one regulation which affected the youth and the elderly alike is the cap on the number of text messages that can be sent from a number in a day , first it was 100 messages per day and later it was relaxed to 200 SMS per day after great criticism from the public, but still I felt it is a restriction on the freedom of expression so after trying out many different methods, I have come up with a single and practical solution to bypass this cap on the number of texts per day
Things Required
A device running on Android OS
Data connectivity(GPRS/3G/WiFi)
Free SMS India is a free android app developed by Mayank Nakrani,it has over 50K downloads and a rating of 4.5/5 , it makes use of the gateways of popular web-based SMS sites like way2sms,Fullonsms,site2sms and 160by2 , you need to create an account in one of the above sites and verify your mobile number with them, Way2Sms is one of my most favourite sites and so I will demonstrate how to send practically unlimited SmSes with it.
Samsung announced their latest smartphone powerhouse Galaxy S3 on may 2nd to stay in top of the smartphone market. The galaxy s3 is not just a high end smartphone but it introduces some new features and trends in mobile phone technology. It also have the latest available version of the Google Android OS. Samsung bundles this super phone with some intelligent and unique features like S-voice, Smart Stay and S-Beam which'll definitely a good move from Korean manufacturer as most company's focusing on hardware features rather than utilizing it effectively.
Smart stay - This intelligent feature makes use of rotation/motion sensors to recognize if you're using the phone and keeps the display awake so that you don't have to touch the display again to keep it awake.
S-Voice - This is an integrated voice recognition app like siri for iPhone. It listens and responds to your commands.
S-Beam - This is a fast data transfer mechanism utilizing Wi-Fi Direct and NFC. In fact by using this feature, you can transfer a movie file of 1GB size in three minutes.
Let's have a look into the hardware specifications of the Samsung I9300 Galaxy S III. (just extracted from gsmarena.com)
Android PC Suite, easily manage your Android phone - rated 4 out of 5
This 91 PC Suite is not an officially released product, meaning one that Google developed and decided to make available for all the users that have an Android based mobile phone (but how cool would that be). It is a product developed by Boyuan Dev-Team, a Chinese company that owns pandaapp.com and the suite of 91 programs (it’s not that they have developed 91 products, it’s just the company’s brand, probably from 911).
Android is also only one of the operating systems supported, as they offer the same PC Suite for iPhone and Windows Mobile. The best part is that this app is free, and here are some of the features that it has:
SMS Chat. This app will allow you to send SMS messages to your friends, in the form of chat messages (something that most programs have by default too, just that this makes it look like a chat window, plus you are able to send SMS directly from your PC through your phone).
Backup phone. Now this is useful, you’ll be able to back-up your call logs, SMS records, ringtones, themes, wallpapers and contacts with the 91 PC Suite for Android.
Phone management. You can manage your phone scheduler (from your PC), install and uninstall software, manage the allocated memory and phone registry.
Free resources. You’ll be able to access the pandaapp directory of free ringtones, software, games, ebooks and wallpapers, the good part being that they’re free, the bad part being that you’ll have to scan those files before installing as you never know what “hidden goodies” you might be installing too.
The program is written by a developer whose main language is not English, so don’t exasperate if you see a casual typo or two as that happens. Also, you will need to install the .NET framework (most computers should have it installed) in order to be able to install this PC Suite.
Publisher’s Description of Android PC Suite 1.7.6.208
Android PC Suite has been developed by the Pandaap team to provide all the Android users a free and very good alternative to other Android applications. It fully supports all the phones running with Android OS. Main features include:
- Windows XP/Vista 64 OS support
- Import/Export contacts
- Back up call logs/SMS
- Download wallpapers, ringtones, themes and software
- Convenient and practical RSS subscription
- Log off and Reboot
- Good UI performance
- Phone process and system registry management
- Software installation, uninstallation and management
- Calendar and schedule management
- Caller location inquiry
Download and use it now: Android PC Suite 1.7.6.208 free download
Going by the growth of Google’s Android and the sliding of mobile giant Nokia from its position , it seems that many of us are switching from Nokia to the latest Android Mobile phones. It’s evident as even i bought Samsung Galaxy S and was using Nokia N79 earlier. So, as soon as i thought of shifting from my Nokia N79 to the Android device, i was unable to move the contacts from my Nokia Phone to the Galaxy S but thankfully i have found a way out with which all contacts from your earlier Nokia device can be transferred easily to your new Android device. Not to worry, i will tell you in brief and in a simple manner, you need not be a techie to understand as even a normal person can understand this procedure. Before we proceed to transferring of contacts, you will have to install the latest versions of Nokia PC Suite, Samsung Kies software tool along with your old and new Android device with you with appropriate USB cables.
Procedure to transfer Nokia Contacts to Android device:
First you will need to connect your Nokia Phone with USB cable to the computer and need to open Nokia PC suite and select Contacts from the dashboard.
Now, once you see all contacts as shown below, you will need to select all Contacts, then proceed to click on File, Export and then save it in a CSV format on the desktop.
Now, this was the last time you will open Nokia PC Suite if you plan to shift to Android completely and you need to proceed to connect your Samsung Galaxy S phone to computer via USB and need to Open Kies. Now, you may encounter with the problem of MTP error at this point of time while connecting your Galaxy S with computer. Don’t worry; you can easily fix MTP Application error on your Android device with the help of a simple video tutorial.
So, now as soon as you are done with fixing the dreaded error of MTP error then launch Kies for your Android device and proceed by clicking on Contacts icon.
After clicking on the Contacts icon, you will find a new page as shown below, just click on Open File
Now, select the CSV File from the list below which you have saved from the Nokia PC suite as shown below.
Once you select the CSV file, you will be asked to map the fields as shown below. Please note that Map the same fields like for Title, map only with Title, First name for First name and like wise as shown below. If you are unsure then its better to leave the option rather than selecting anything as that will basically mess up the contacts.
If you wish to add any additional information details which you had in your Nokia phone like Fax, email address, website or fields which you were not able to match then open this in Excel and fill in the appropriate content in the columns.
Now, Click on OK and you can now see a list of all your contacts as shown below. Just click on Transfer to Device tab and now you should be able to transfer all your imported contacts in to the Samsung Galaxy S.
Now, when you are done with performing above steps as mentioned, you can see that all of your contacts have been successfully transferred into your Android device from your Nokia device. Also, most importantly note that, after completely transferring the contacts into your Android device, first up take the backup of all the contacts which you have transferred from your Nokia to Android device so that if anything goes wrong with your Android device, you need not repeat this procedure to transfer all your contacts from Nokia to Android. So, this is it, you can now successfully enjoy all your contacts in your new Android device.
New Android 4.0.3 ROM found for Galaxy S II (I9100XXLPB)
A new Samsung ROM based on Android 4.0.3 has been found and when we say new, it's pretty current stuff. Dated just a few days ago (January 29), it's said that this (I9100XXLPB) ROM is ready for daily use and is considered very stable. You'll see from the short video below that it incorporates both Android 4.0 aesthetics with the Samsung TouchWiz UI and features a slight 3D swiping experience on the home screen. SamMobile is reporting that this release also offers improved battery performance, calling it "lots better". If you'd like to download and flash this ROM to your Galaxy S II then you can grab it directly from SamMobile.com/firmware. Otherwise, wait a few weeks and get it once it officially rolls out.
Posts
