How to Install ROM on Rooted T-Mobile Galaxy S2! [SGH-T989]

If you want to install a new ROM on your rooted T-Mobile Galaxy S2 SGH-T989, you will want to make sure to make a backup of your ROM first (see How to Backup ROM on T-Mobile Galaxy S2!)

Also, installing new ROM erases all your settings and apps, I highly recommend you to use Titanium Backup app to backup your apps beforehand. (see How to Backup/Restore Apps with Titanium Backup app!)

Once you’ve got the backup of your ROM and also apps out of the way, here’s how to install ROM on a rooted T-Mobile Galaxy S2:

Step 1. Install ROM Manager off Market and open.

Step 2. Choose “Flash ClockworkMod” to install the latest version.

Step 3. Copy over the ROM zip file you want to install by putting it in USB storage mode then copying over the file on your computer.

Step 4. In this example, I am copying EagleBlood_SGH-T989_1.0.zip, which is the ROM zip file.

Step 5. Choose “Reboot into Recovery” in ROM Manager to reboot into recovery.

Step 6. Choose “wipe data/factory reset” and hit Power button. (not wipe cache partition)

Step 7. Choose “Yes”.

Step 8. Choose “install zip from sdcard”.

Step 9. Choose “choose zip from sdcard” or “choose zip from internal sdcard” depending where you copied the ROM zip file to.

Step 10. Choose the ROM zip file you want to install.

Step 11. Choose “Yes”.

Step 12. Wehn it’s complete choose “Go Back”.

Step 13. Choose “Reboot system now”.

Step 14. You should reboot into the new ROM.

Step 15. Enjoy your new ROM and restore your apps using Titanium Backup app.

Posted on Monday, January 16, 2012 / 0 comments / Read More

No Lock Galaxy S2 Widget

My opinion that, some time you are very tired for your phone with lock screen? This widget lets you disable the lock screen on your galaxy s2 so you come straight onto the home screen of your device. Simply install the widget and tap to either enable or disable the lock screen







. Download No Lock.

Posted on Wednesday, January 11, 2012 / 0 comments / Read More

Samsung Galaxy S User Guide

        This Samsung Galaxy S guide will help you to customize your phone and teach you how to take advantage of its best features.

Samsung Galaxy S

The Android powered Samsung Galaxy S is the first smartphone to have a large 4-inch Super AMOLED display with life-like colors. The phone comes with excellent call quality, the speed to multitask loads of applications and it is less than a centimeter thick. The Samsung Galaxy S is packed with so much stuff that you’ll always have something to play with. Here’s our Samsung Galaxy S guide that will help you to get the most out of your phone.

Customize Your Samsung Galaxy S

You can easily personalize your Samsung Galaxy S by following these instructions.

• Open the application list in the idle mode and select ‘Settings’. Tap on the ‘Date and Time’ option to set the date and time of the device.
• You can access the calendar by opening the application list of the device. Select ‘Calendar’ from the list and customize it according to your requirements and then hit save.
• Select the wallpaper option in the idle mode. Tap to choose the image and select ‘set wallpaper’ or ‘save’ to set the wallpaper on your device.
• If you want to prevent others from using your device, you can set an unlock pattern by selecting the ‘settings’ option from the application list. Then choose ‘location and security’ to ‘set unlock pattern’.
• To access or browse your favorite pages, select ‘browser’ from the application list. This will launch the homepage, enter the web address in the URL input field and select ‘go’ to enjoy browsing from your Samsung Galaxy S.
  
• To use the Bluetooth feature, open the application list; select ‘Settings’ – ‘Wireless and Network’ – ‘Bluetooth settings’. Next, turn on the Bluetooth to use this feature.
• You can easily connect your Galaxy S with the internet, wireless hotspots and network devices via its Wi-Fi feature. Select ‘Settings’ – ‘Wireless and Network’ – ‘Wi-Fi Settings’- ‘Wi-Fi’.
• Social Hub is a great integrated communication application for the Galaxy S for messages, emails, instant messages, calendar and contact information. To access this application select ‘Social Hub’ from the list of applications.
• You can listen to music with the music player while on the go. The Samsung Galaxy S plays music in the following formats; MP3, MP4, M4A, 3GA, 3GP, OGG, WMA, OGA, FLAC, and ACC. Transfer the music to your device either by copying it to the memory card or by downloading it on the phone. Open the application list and choose ‘Music Player’. Follow the icons on the music player to play music.
• You can even listen to news and music with the FM Radio. Select ‘FM Radio’ from the application list and turn on the radio. The FM radio automatically scans and saves stations.
  
• To adjust the volume of the ringtone, press the volume key located on the left side of the phone.

BatteryBasic Features

The Samsung Galaxy S has few hardware controls. To turn on the device, press and hold the power button that is located on the right hand side of the phone. Most of the functions of the Samsung Galaxy S are performed through its touch screen. To turn on the touch screen, press the Home key. The touch screen automatically gets turned off if you do not use the device for a specified period. The Samsung Galaxy S touch screen can be locked or unlocked by pressing the power button.

The phone features a virtual keyboard that’s easy to use. You can even choose the keyboard type from Swype or Samsung keypad options. Select Phone – Keypad – Input method.

Below the display are three hardware buttons: Menu, Home and Back button. The menu key launches the search field and the home key starts the task switcher.

The Samsung Galaxy S is equipped with a 1500 mAh battery that provides 13 hours of 2G talk time and 6 hours of 3G talk time. The device has a great battery that will exceed your expectations. You can easily use it for 2 days without charging it. The Samsung Galaxy S also displays the battery availability for various functions and it restricts your functions, if the battery is low.

However the following suggestions will help you save the battery of your smartphone.

• Lower the brightness of the mobile phone to save battery.
• Set the ‘Screen Timeout’ option to 15 seconds when the screen is idle.
• Keep the phone on flight mode in areas where there is no connection or when you don’t want to make and receive calls.
• Restrict your network settings to 2G, when you don’t need the 3G connectivity.
• GPS drains the battery, so disable it when not in use.
• Activate the default power saving option that automatically functions to save battery.

Posted on Wednesday, January 11, 2012 / 0 comments / Read More

No Wand Needed for these Tricks & Tips for Samsung Galaxy S II

You have the most awesome phone and are now a bit stuck to know what to do with it? There are so many neat things it can do that are hidden beneath that tough Gorilla glass exterior, from the cool to the useful, right through to the essential, follow us on our nifty time-saving journey.

Scratch the Surface

You'll have no doubt noticed when you got your phone that the back cover is a little flimsy -- or even cheap looking if we're being honest. So the first thing to do is to whack a case on it -- covers up the awful back as well as protecting your phone. I personally wouldn't bother with a screen protector for two reasons: one, the display is so lush I don't want anything getting in the way of it; two, it's really not that necessary as the Gorilla glass screen is pretty darn tough and resists scratches well.

This is just common sense stuff though, you want to get stuck in with the neat stuff your phone can do. No problem! Samsung Galaxy S2 tips and tricks coming right up...

Customize with Grids

One of the coolest things about the S2 home screens is that the TouchWiz UI allows you to customize your widgets and pictures according to grids, so you don't necessarily have to have them at the size they are right now -- this depends on the widget to a certain extent so you'll need to have a play around to see what suits you. It's definitely useful for pictures and the like as you can make sure they fit neatly on your home screen with no spare space.

It's a bit tricky to begin with as you need to medium press the relevant image to get the grid up -- that is longer than a tap but less than a long press. You then get presented with the grid that you can move around to the size and shape you like (provided there's enough space of course)

Have a Tidy Up - Folders & Shortcuts

If your phone came loaded with many preinstalled apps that you don't know what to do with, or you have an appdiction, then very

quickly your phone will be covered with more icons than you can handle. Make use of folders and organize your screens according to games, social, or whatever else you have to categorize. You have two options:

• From the applications screen tap the menu icon followed by edit, and hold down "add folder", you can then slide your empty folder to wherever you wish.
• Long press on an empty space on one of your home screens, underneath you get a good few options, one of which is "new folder". You can then name your folder accordingly.

Just slide whatever apps you want into the relevant folders.

There are three shortcuts that are always on the screen whether you're in applications or your home screen -- Phone, Contacts, Messaging -- although these are useful and you may not want to get rid of them, you can do so if you wish.

• Tap menu followed by edit and you'll see a white corner around the top left of each shortcut. Then you just need to find what you want to replace them with and slide them into place. Or just get rid of it and slide it somewhere into your apps so it's still there but not always on your screen if you don't want it.

Stay Safe Out There - Antivirus & Security

With hot new tech, come those who will try to benefit from it and unfortunately malware and viruses are something you need to protect your phone from, just as much as you would do with your computer. That isn't the only threat though, being such a luscious device means theft is a real issue too. There is some great anti-virus and security software for Android and many address the two issues in one.

I like Lookout Mobile as there is a free option which scans everything I download, as well as being able to locate my phone should it become lost or stolen. There are plenty of other options though, depending on what's important to you and how much you want to spend.

Are You Battering the Battery?

Of course the S2 isn't unique in the smartphone world when it comes to frequency of charging -- it's a common complaint of almost any smartphone you care to mention. However, what with the dual-core processor, and Super AMOLED Plus display to power, battery juice is going to be something you are concerned about. Here are some easy things you can do to preserve that battery life:

• Get yourself a battery monitor app or widget and put it on one of your home screens for quick access. Not only will it give you an accurate picture of how much battery life you've got left, it can also run tests to see how your battery is running, and most interestingly will bring up the percentages to show how much certain apps and functions are draining your battery.
• Turn off Wi-Fi, data and GPS when you aren't using them.
• The screen display of the S2 is of superb quality, and one of the reasons for this is that it doesn't work in the conventional way, in that it doesn't use a backlight. In fact it will only illuminate a pixel if it needs to be illuminated, so if something should be black, it will be black as black, as those pixels won't be turned on at all. Therefore, if you have a wallpaper or widgets with a larger portion of black in them, then the battery used for the display will be minimized. Of course you don't want a dull, dark screen, but I have a live moon phase wallpaper which looks amazing, but doesn't use up nearly as much battery as others.
• Get the program manager widget on your home screen to shut down apps quickly when you aren't using them.

Time Saving Tricks

That's the big stuff organized, now check out these quick and useful Samsung Galaxy S II tips and tricks to help you save time -- they're pretty neat.

• For sending messages and emails make sure you use the Swype keyboard. You just need to trace a path through the letters of a word rather than trying to hit each individual key -- it has a predictive element too so is quite forgiving if you don't quite catch a letter as you're tracing. You don't even have to hit the space bar as Swype will recognize the end of one word and the start of a next. To make sure the Swype keyboard is activated, long press on the Swype key on the bottom left corner of the keyboard to choose your input method.
• Send messages and make calls quickly. Tap on contacts, find your contact of choice and swipe them to the left to message, or to the right to call.
• Long pressing the power button brings up a quick menu to quickly disable/enable data connection, as well as turn silent mode and flight mode on and off.
• Pull your finger down from the very top of the screen for a pull down menu to turn off Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, and access Sound and Auto rotation settings -- much quicker than going through the settings.

Android is such a versatile system, there are loads more ways of getting more out of your Galaxy S2, but we've covered the best ones here. If you have a tip for us that we've missed, please let us know.

Posted on Wednesday, January 11, 2012 / 0 comments / Read More

Top Applications for Samsung Galaxy S II

Here is the round up of some of the best Android applications that will allow you to take full advantage of the Samsung Galaxy S 2’s 4.3 inch WVGA Super AMOLED display and its dual core processor.

Evernote

Evernote for Android is an excellent cloud-based note-storing service that offers an amazing platform to file text, picture, video and multimedia notes into separate folders. Each folder that you create is stored on Evernote’s server where everything is indexed using tags, titles or keywords. You can easily search and find what you are looking for on any platform that Evernote supports. It also allows you to modify existing notes.

Evernote is a free app that simplifies daily processes. With an excellent cloud-based note service and a clean interface, you have no reason to leave Evernote off your Samsung Galaxy S 2.

Whats App Messenger

The WhatsApp Messenger allows you to chat with anyone who has a BlackBerry, an iPhone, or a Nokia phone right from your Android phone. In order to exchange text messages you just have to install the app on your mobile device. WhatsApp either uses 3G or Wi-Fi to send messages. This service is free for the first year and then you will have to pay a yearly subscription fee of $1.99.

The annual fee might be a turn off for some people as there are plenty of other apps in the Market that allow you to chat across different platforms for free. However, this app allows you to transfer files where most other messaging applications may not have this ability. Overall, it’s a great app

Slice It!

Slice It! is an ingenious puzzle game that presents you with a basic shape and your goal is to slice/divide it into the required number of equal pieces using a fixed number of moves. Every move consists of a swipe across the shape that marks where the slice will occur. Usually it gets difficult to precisely divide the shape via this method, so there’s another easy multi-touch method that allows you to mark the slice using two fingers.

Apart from circles and squares, which can be evenly sliced, you are also presented with asymmetrical polygons that are impossible to divide into even pieces. The puzzle also has its share of obstacles like the red areas that cannot be sliced and mirrors that very tactfully mirror your slicing angle.

Overall, Slice It! is an amazing game that’s hard to crack. That being said, it’s a fresh concept that will surely prompt an obsession amongst those who are up for the challenge.

Google Maps

Google Maps now features 3D capabilities and offline access. Rather than downloading the flat, north up maps, Google Maps now makes use of vector graphics to dynamically draw maps. This permits tilting when you drag down with two fingers and rotation when you twist with two fingers. Along with pinch to zoom and compass mode, you can easily navigate across 3D maps.

Google Maps 5 also automatically starts caching areas on your Android device that you visit the most, allowing you to use these maps in areas without Internet connectivity. To learn more about this free app, check out our guide on Google Maps.

Foursquare

Foursquare is an easy to understand application that allows you to check-in to places and earn points and badges, all while stalking your friends! It even allows you to become the mayor of the venue, if you check-in more than anyone else. Some businesses like Starbucks even offer discounts for you being the mayor.

This Samsung Galaxy S 2 application uses your GPS location to find venues around you and if you check in to a venue that’s very far away from your location, then no points are awarded. Hence, you cannot game the system. Although not really useful, it’s an addictive app that you will love. You can download it for free from Android Market.

Pulse News Reader

Pulse News Reader is a free Android app that takes RSS feeds and newsfeeds and displays them in a clear and accessible manner in the form of a colorful mosaic. The app syncs directly with your Google Reader account and allows you to read between your computer and your Android device, seamlessly. You can easily scroll through news articles and choose what you want to read. Pulse News offers featured feeds from Wall StreetJournal, NewYork Times, Business Week, Fortune Magazine, TechCrunch and others.

DoubleTwist AirSync

DoubleTwist AirSync wirelessly syncs songs from iTunes via your computer to yourSamsung Galaxy S 2. The app also allows users to connect Android smartphones to media devices or computers over Wi-Fi.

AirSync is a paid extension to the doubleTwist service and probably one of the first Android applications that can take advantage of AirPlay like functions. The app streams media on an Android device and turns it into a remote control for all sorts of Internet connected televisions. It also has a Bump like feature that lets users share a video or song with one another by tapping Android devices together. Overall, DoubleTwist AirSync is one power packed service available in the Android Market for $4.99.

TweetDeck

This is one of those Samsung Galaxy S 2 apps that will appeal to social network addicts. The TweetDeck Android app combines your Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz and Foursquare accounts into one application. The app has a very clean interface that displays all of your tweets, data, updates, post, etc. for each account in separate columns on the main screen. If you want to deal with all of your social networking in a single, handy location then this is the app for you.

Google Goggles

Google Goggles is a visual search app that uses a picture of an object instead of text to bring search results. Once you take a picture of the object from your Android device, the app tries to recognize the object and display relevant search results.

This impressive app, still in its infancy stages, is capable of recognizing DVDs, books, landmarks, artwork, logos, businesses, barcodes, contact information, products and even text. One of the best features of this app is its ability to translate the text from the pictures of text in a foreign language. This can really help save you from ending up in the wrong places in a foreign country. Though it’s a cool app, it’s limited in its scope right now and maybe a little ahead of its time.

SoundHound

SoundHound is the world’s fastest music recognition application that recognizes the name of the song playing from a speaker or you singing or humming in just 4 seconds. It identifies music by allowing the phone to listen to it. Once the song is identified and tagged, it provides a wealth of information about the song, artist, related songs, purchase options, lyrics and more. Overall, SoundHound is a WOW app that identifies music pretty accurately.

The free version of the app allows you up to 5 tags a month whereas the one time $4.99 paid version offers unlimited tagging. This app requires Android 1.5 and up and can be downloaded from the Android Market.

Know of any other excellent Samsung Galaxy S 2 apps? Post a comment and let us know.

References

• Evernote, https://market.android.com/details?id=com.evernote
• WhatsApp Messenger, https://market.android.com/details?id=com.whatsapp
• Slice It!, https://market.android.com/details?id=com.com2us.sliceit
• Google Maps, https://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.maps
• Foursquare, https://market.android.com/details?id=com.joelapenna.foursquared
• Pulse News, https://market.android.com/details?id=com.alphonso.pulse
• DoubleTwist AirSync, https://market.android.com/details?id=com.doubleTwist.androidPlayerProKey
• Tweet Deck, https://market.android.com/details?id=com.thedeck.android.app
• Google Goggles, https://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.unveil
• SoundHound, https://market.android.com/details?id=com.melodis.midomiMusicIdentifier
• Image Credits: All screenshots are the property of respective app developer.

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Posted on Wednesday, January 11, 2012 / 0 comments / Read More