Samsung Galaxy S2 GT-I9100 - Tips and Tricks

With the GALAXY S II, you will no longer be limited when it comes to enjoying your mobile life. However some of it's features are not so obvious or easy to find.
Here are some tips and tricks, which will help you to get the most out of your SGS2 mobile device and discover some hidden features of this great mobile device.

Taking Screenshots

Taking screenshots on Android devices is a pain, but on the Galaxy S2, you can simply hold down the home button and then briefly press the power key to take a screenshot. You can then see your screenshots in the Gallery.

Adjusting Brightness with Notification Bar

The notification bar can serve as a brightness scroll on the Galaxy S 2, if you are not using the automatic brightness option. Just hit the notification bar, hold for a second and swipe left to decrese and right to increase the brightness.

Browser Text Wrapping

Out of the box the Galaxy S2 doesn’t automatically reflow the text in the webpage if you zoom in. But if you just goto settings and check the ‘auto-fit pages’ option, all is well again.

Changing User Agent

The SGS2 browser lets you change the user-agent without needing an extra app, just type ‘about:useragent’ in browser's location bar and you can choose between the iPhone, Nexus One, Desktop, Galaxy S or even enter a custom string.

Test Mode

Dialing *#0*# in the dialer enters the LCD test mode, useful if you are looking for for dead pixels, debugging sensors and other hardware parts of your SGS2.

Search Key

Although SGS2 like the SGS doesn’t have a dedicated search key that all other Android devices have, but if you long press menu, it launch the search screen, anywhere you'd need it.

Video Screen Lock

Pressing the power button while video player is playing locks the screen, now you can hold the device any way you like, no more accidental presses will happen. To unlock, just press the power button again.

Customizing App Launcher Bar

If you would like to change applications shortcuts in bottom application launcher bar, press the Applications button, then Menu -> Edit. You can then rearrange those shortcuts or replace them with other applications or remove them completely. There's limita of maximum 3 shortcuts and the Home button will always be there.

Changing USB to File Transfer Mode

When you connect USB cable, SGS2 mounts it's file system read-only and transfering files between PC and handset is possible with Kies only. To change this behavior to normal read-write USB file transfer mode, go to Settings -> Applications -> Development and enable USB debugging.

Remove Picasa Web Albums From Android Gallery

Android phones have the capability of not only  showing what you have inside the memory card but also from your google picasa web albums, even your profile pictures google and facebook profile. This is done through sync feature of web accounts which is a very nice feature of android OS. You can synchronize much more accounts than google or facebook by navigating into Settings > Accounts and Sync in your android phone.

But for most of the users have complaints about showing their private photos on gallery app. This is quite frustrating where there you have blogger accounts and your uploaded images are shown up in your smart phone gallery. however the removal of these pictures from gallery is not direct but is related to account sync. Here's how to remove picasa web albums from gallery of your android smartphone.

To disable Web pictures from gallery:

1. On your android phone, goto Settings > Accounts and Sync settings > manage accounts.

 

2. This will show up the internet accounts that you've currently synching. Open your gmail account and uncheck Picasa web albums. you're done. 

3. After the media scan you'll notice that the picasa images are being removed from gallery.

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Thats a problem right there!  While I dont have a tablet or Honeycomb, that definitely should not be happening.  So in your Settings - on the tab - in your Google Account you have unchecked Sync Picasa?  And you have no other application on the tab such as Picasa Tool?  or Just Pictures or anything that is set up with your account?  If not then theres something snazzy going on...

Heres a suggestion -- use a file manager (Explorer or any file manager) and go to 

/mnt/sdcard/Android/data/com.cooliris.media and delete the whole "com.cooliris.media" file.  Dont worry about losing anything -- that is the cached build of all your media...local and non-local i.e. your Picasa.  Reboot the tab.  It will rebuild itself upon Runtime.  Does the Picasa stuff still show up?  Make sure everything is unchecked and theres no direct connection to your Picasa Web Album.

If that does not work -- go ahead and delete the whole /mnt/sdcard/Android/data folder -- thats mostly just cache stuff and you may lose some data but most of that stuff is synced.  Reboot.  If you are root - then go to your recovery and clear Dalvik.  It will rebuild upon starting runtime.

let us know what you try -- this is an interesting problem. We may have other ideas.. but thats what I would do first off...

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Hi,

Try the following steps it will work

1) Go to settings click on Accounts and Sync.
2) Uncheck Sync Picasa Web Albums.
3) Come back and click on Applications in the settings page.
4) Now click on Manage Applications.
5) In the manage application page click the Menu option ALL.
6)Scroll down you will find an option called gallery.
7) Click on the Gallery and clear data. Note: Don't worry your local data won't be deleted.
9) Thats it check your gallery now there wont be any Picasa web albums in your Gallery.

Regards,

FASTEST WAY :
Don`t login to your account when first start phone - Or Flash Original FW
Turn off sync function And next add your google account !
Hope this can help you !

How Do I Find My Galaxy S2 (SII) IMEI Number?

Finding the IMEI number on your Galaxy S2 is easy:
Tap: Menu > Settings > About Phone > Status.
Scroll down and you'll find it. Tada!

Disable Wake From Volume Buttons (ROOT)

I like having keys that have specific jobs.  There is something that just feels a little sloppy to me when multiple keys have the same effect. In this instance I'm talking about multiple buttons that wake the phone from sleep. The home button and power button make sense to me, but I just don't need those volume buttons doing the job too. For that reason, I've disabled that option.
 I used Root Explorer on my Galaxy S2 but there are other options. First navigate to the root folder and then to: system/usr/keylayout. Open the sec_key.kl file as a text document and then just delete the word "WAKE" from the lines you want. Each line corresponds to a button on the phone, it's clear you'll see. Save the file and reboot. Done. You will need to root your Galaxy S2 first. I really ought to do a quicksticks root guide.... coming soon.

Disable Voice Command When You Tap the Home Button Twice (ROOT)

There aren't many things that bug me about the Samsung Galaxy S2. Very few really, but one of them is that the Voice Command option comes up far too often. AND I'm convinced it sometimes comes up when I haven't even tapped the home button twice. I haven't found the need for that feature really, so today enough was enough and I removed it. It's a simple enough process with Titanium Backup, although I did back it up first just in case. You never know. You will have to have a rooted phone though. Let us know if you've found any other tricks to stop voice command from appearing after a double home tap, without uninstalling it entirely.

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 FAQS

Don`t want to delete it 

I have found that the voice command isn't really usefull to me... so I've just renamed the /system/app/VoiceToGo.apk so the system cannot launch it... If I will ever want to have-it bach I will change it to original name. :)

Ok, removing is easier, but how do i get it back?
I tried vlingo and i actually didnt like it, but when i pressed the home button twice it asked permission to change the main app, so i chose vligo... later i found out it was a horrible mistake. Soo, i just want to take the voice command that command that comes when you buy the SGS2. Any suggestions?

 Just uninstall vlingo! Then go back into Titanium backup and restore Voice Command from backup. If you didn't back it up, try flashing the latest stock rom.

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Others methol:
[APP] homeMYhome (customize home double tap)
 

Hi folks, with this app you can select any application to be launched on home double tap button / bluetooth longpress.

Requires a Samsung-based rom (no cyanogen or other AOSP, sorry).

Only one rule: my app use the same package name of Samsung Voice Control (I've chosen the easy way to do this hack ), so you have to delete /system/app/VoiceToGo.apk (if your rom include it) and reboot before installing the attached .apk.

In last leaked Ice Cream Sandwich roms I've found VoiceToGo is in different location:
XXLP2 > /system/app/vlingo.apk
XXLPB > /data/app/com.vlingo.client.samsung-1.apk




I've written this app simply because I don't like Samsung Voice control, I was using Vlingo on my Nexus One and I think it was much more efficent and less Samsung-centric. Afterwards I decided to share it with you, so I added an activity to choose any installed application.

Hope you'll like it as I do, suggestions&donations are welcome.



CHANGELOG

1.0 (12/10/11)
- first release

1.1 (13/10/11)
- changed app launch mode (google talk fc)
- changed save preference mode to work without sqlite sync (toast confirmation didn't appear, app didn't close itself automatically, and settings was lost on restart, if you had this problem uninstall and reinstall)

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Attached Files

homeMYhome_1.1.apk - (16.1 KB, 5088 views)

Set the Default Homescreen on Your Samsung Galaxy S2's TouchWiz Interface

I've read many complaints about TouchWiz 4.0. One of them being that you cannot change the default homescreen.  I use LauncherPro so that isn't really a problem for me but for those of you still using TouchWiz 4.0 there is quite a simple solution.  You will have to Root your phone first though.


Once that is done, navigate to your Root folder with Root Explorer or equivalent, then to the System folder and locate the default.prop file and open it with the text editor, and add this line to it:
ro.csc.homescreen.defaultscreen=3

Please note that the number you enter is has to be one less than the homescreen you actually want as your default. In this example, it will actually be the 4th homescreen that is set as the default.
Reboot your phone and you should see the effects of your tinkering straight away.

Control Your Samsung Galaxy S2 with a Bluetooth Mouse

As it turns out you can actually control your Samsung Galaxy S2 with a bluetooth mouse. We tried with an old Dell mouse we had sitting around and although most of the functions worked, we had some problems with the scroll-wheel. That's not to say it wouldn't work better with a different mouse and we have heard that a Logitech mouse works better.  Still, it's quite impressive that the feature works straight out of the box without having to install any separate software on the phone.  To check out our quick experimentation with this feature, hit the Read More link or visit our Videos section.