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Review: Mobile Stream’s EasyTether for non-rooted phones

Good news for owners of non-rooted phones: Mobile Stream’s EasyTether app, already available for Palm, Blackberry, and WinMo users, is now available on the Android Market as a free beta. EasyTether allows you to use your phone’s data connection to provide internet connectivity for your laptop or other device via a USB cable. Because the app [...]

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Tip: How to fix your Android’s battery issues (rooted devices)

Here’s a quick tip I found on the cyanogenmod wiki for people with rooted phones and battery life issues. Many users report increases in their battery life meters after using this fix, but please note that this method does NOT provide any benefits for those with healthy batteries battery meters. How do you know if you [...]

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Verizon Droid Eris, Google Voice and the “Network Busy” error message

I will clarify that I am not sure how wide spread this problem is, but it happened to me and also to another Droid Eris user that I am friends with. Given that I will assume that it may be happening to other Droid Eris users also. That said, I recently received a review unit Droid [...]

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Hack for rooted phones promises faster 2G/3G speeds

A quick hack posted here on the XDA Android Development forum by “Stimpoff” may allow you to achieve faster download and upload speeds on 2G and 3G networks. I say “may” because it didn’t work for some people, including me up here in Minneapolis. However, there are enough happy users that have reported successes (up [...]

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Workaround: How to fix the GSM/WAV voicemail attachment issue in Android

UPDATE: While the solution below still works, I am happy to say that Walter Wang has released an app on the Market (after reading this post!) that may solve this problem for most. The app is called “Remote Wave,” and it has been confirmed to work with K9 and the built-in GMail client, among others. If [...]

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Android Tip: Set your Google Voice app notifications to manual and still get near instant notifications for SMS and voicemail messages

I am a Google Voice user, but will also confess that I like the service more than I probably should, kind of borderline fanboyish. But that is OK because at least I can admit my issues. That said, I thought I would take a minute to offer a tip for Google Voice and Android users. Google [...]

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Android tips: use long press to discover app widgets and shortcuts

Widgets are always available for download in the Android Market, but many of the “regular” apps that you download come with built-in widgets. I’ve been getting several questions from new Android owners recently that all seem to deal with similar issues. Is there an easy way to change Google Voice settings? How do I get [...]

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How to get Google Voice’s voicemail feature without switching numbers

I was exciteded when Google Voice was first announced for U.S. residents, but my excitement went down when I realized the 1,000 business cards with my current number sitting on my desk would be worthless. Google now offers a compromise to people who want some of Google Voice’s features but don’t want to deal with [...]

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How to hide non-music audio files from appearing in Android media players

There’s a common Android problem of unwanted media files appearing in the song list of music players. This annoyingly causes your favorite songs to get mixed in with audio files associated with other apps, such as voice files for a GPS navigation app. There’s a simple solution for this issue. We’ve already covered how you can [...]

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How to install the HTC Android soft keyboard without rooting your phone

One of the perks of rooting my phone was that it included the HTC version of the on-screen keyboard. I flat out didn’t like the default keyboard and was content switching between Better Keyboard or Touchpal, but the HTC version has momentarily subdued my ADD and become my input method of choice. Want to have this [...]

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