Android Phone notes:
Well I decided to upgrade
phones to Windows 7 Phone and found out that I misunderstood the
articles I was reading. I thought I would not have a problem upgrading
to Phone 7 from Windows 6.5, but I was wrong.
Microsoft has been
very good at locking down the phone so you have to go through the
marketplace to buy or download applications. It prevented me from side
loading programs such as CoPilot maps, and prevented me from syncing my
phone to my Lightning Calendar using USB. Before I go any further, I don't want to hear from anyone
recommending using Google or any one elses sync program to do it over
the air.
After
much searching and thinking, I decided to go to Android, having figured
out I could accomplish my goals, now that Android has advanced.
My goals are:
To USB sync my calendar with my laptop offline
To install and use an offline street map
To make phone calls
I
bought an Android phone running 2.2.1 from a Chinese source. It is a
Star A5000 with capacitive screen. After getting the phone operating
and going through an extensive learning curve, I was able to just
insert my ATT Sim card and I'm off and running. All my phone numbers
are there with all my phone contacts. No syncing over the phone network
to get them into my new phone.
I have been a long time user of
ATT, since 1986, and have always had my texting blocked and never had
web browsing. They did not automatically add a data plan, which is good
for them, since I would switch to Sprint in a nano second if I did have
to add it.
Android does not automatically side load, so to make
it side load, I had to turn on USB debugging mode. It essentially
puts the phone into a debug mode and allows read/write access to the sd
card as if it were a USB drive. The Android phone must be manually put
into side load mode , but it will bring up a box allowing you to do it.
When you are finished, you must take it out of debug mode. I don't know
if turning it off is necessary without damaging the sd card or
not, so I just
manually do it every time. I did unplug my phone from the USB once
without turning off debug, and nothing happened to the phone.
To enable USB debug mode, on your phone go to
settings/applications/development, and then turn on USB Debugging. When
you plug the phone into the laptop, a dialog will appear in your pull
down menu allowing you to enter debug mode.
The next step you need to do is get a file explorer program so you can
browse your phones directories. I am using ES File explorer. This is
not needed for most applications.
Next you will need to "root" your phone. As best I understand this, the
manufacturer puts a locking bit in EEROM some place which prevents you
or some one else from modifying the main operating system: In my case,
Android 2.2.1. I used Z4Root. You can download and run it and it will
root your phone and install a command file called BusyBox. You
may use commands such as cp by using the command format
Busybox cp filename1 to filename2. I had trouble with BusyBox being
able to write to Android directories. I also had trouble using an
application called Root Explorer. It did not get access to the Android
files. These are not normally needed.
Instead, I used a terminal emulator called Term.apk which allows you to
drop to a command line and then go to super user using the su command.
Then do a standard copy of, in my case, fonts. It is not needed for
most applications. I used this to copy fonts from my sd card to the
Adroid system directory under super user. It is a command line copy,
but it works.
I didn't need all this to get CoPilot working. I found the .apk online
for the CoPilot mapping program and installed it and ran it. I used my
phones wifi to connect to the internet to get validation of my license.
It did fail to validate, and when I contacted Tech Support, they gave
me stupid answers. Eventually, I just used the debug mode and copied my
Windows map files and license information from my laptop to my new
phone, and it worked. I would suggest you look into a couple other
offline maps such as Sygic or Map Droid. I was not able to get Map
Droid to enable the GPS on my phone, so if you are using a different
phone, it might work quite well for you. It is a free map. Sygic is not
free, but seems reasonably priced at about $20 for the US.
I use Birdie Sync to sync my phone calendar to my laptop over USB. You
can get the .apk off the internet and side load it to the phone. It
installs and runs well. I managed to get mine working in a short time.
This also is not free, but it does sync your events and contacts very
easily, and offline. It is free to try, so you have nothing to lose.
I installed a Greek Bible on my phone. Android 2.2.1 does not have a
good Greek font, so after digging, I found I was able to get the You
Version Bible installed, and the fonts did not work. I found Ubuntu
Droid fonts, downloaded them, unzipped them, and then copied one of the
fonts to my phone. It must be renamed as DroidSansFallback.ttf and copy
it into the /system/fonts directory. You must be superuser in a rooted
phone. I rebooted the phone, and the Bible works very well. You Version
is a free Bible, but I have only been able to get one language at a
time, so to use it as an interlinear is not practical.
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Contact Info:
work 614-851-1100
email:
eplurib@earthlink.net
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Charlie Morrison
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