Unflappings

If you have recently followed the previous post dealing with setting up a pptp vpn connection on your droid for remote monitoring and file sharing, you have come to find out that when you are not connected to wifi or 3G your remote connection can at times be slow. When you are busy, on the go, but want to make sure you have your files downloaded when you get home, follow this quick start guide. This guide will allow you to remotely download, monitor, and maintain torrents from your home PC all from your Android device. I will be listing all the steps necessary to remotely monitor torrents from your Android Device. We are going to be covering uTorrent installation (although any torrent utility with a web management utility should work) , uTorrent Configuration, Networking setups, and finally Android Application configuration. It may sound like a lot, but don’t fear. Following this tutorial should only take a few minutes.

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Photo from DroidNews

Sometimes when you find new apps on the market, or download them from your favorite source, your phone starts to act less then favorable. Sometimes this can be due to a faulty app, or an app that conflicts to another. It is easy when you install one app at a time, because you can simply remove the suspected app. When you install multiple apps, on multiple days, it is harder to pinpoint the certain app causing an issue.  At times, it would be better to do a clean install and force an update to refresh your phone to factory status. Follow the steps below if you would like to bypass your new phone installation and boot your Droid into “safemode” to see if that faulty app really is causing issues with your phone such as lag, unresponsiveness, or massive battery drain.

1. Power off your device
2. When powering on your device, hold the menu button on the physical keyboard (it looks like 4 horizontal lines) as well as the power button
3. Hold the menu button until you see the Droid “Eye”. This has been completed when you feel the phone vibrate
4. After the vibration, release the menu key and let the phone boot as normal. You will now see “safe mode” in the corner of your phone. If your phone acts normal now, it was due to a faulty app or widget that did not get along with your phone setup. If you phone is still acting up, it may be a hardware issue or it may be time to clear your settings and do a phone update.

Photo Courtesy of ZDnet

So you want the new 2.1 update for your Droid but you don’t want to wait for the Over the Air (OTA) update. Maybe you rooted your phone and you simply want to mess around with the files for development purposes. Well you can grab the download here and also get installation instructions below.

NOTE* this is for Droid phones which are not rooted and are running 2.0.1 ***CONFIRMED*** This works on Rooted and Unrooted Droids. Proceed at your own Caution while applying this update with a Rooted Droid. If you have applied any custom ROM’s you may run into problems. In addition it may be better to go back to stock before you proceed with this tutorial.

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It is a hassle when you are messing with customizing your phone and you lose all your important data. Luckily, the good thing about the Android OS is the ability to upload all your data to the “cloud”. Unfortunately, this does not entail the backup of your system settings, text messages and phone logs.

Don’t fear, and don’t buy any expensive solutions that claim to be the one touch backup king. Not that the PPU solutions won’t work nicely, because they do. However, in times like these, its much better to go the free route.

To backup your Call Logs and restore them, follow the steps below:

1. Go to the Android market, and download “Call Logs Backup & Restore”
2. Install the Application
3. Open the application, and select “Backup Call Logs”
4. Wait patiently, at times this process can take a few moments

To backup your Call Logs backup to your local machine (The extra care procedure, not needed)

1. Plug your phone into a computer via a USB cable
2. Go to your notification bar, and select “USB Connected” and then select “Mount”
3. Navigate to your computer and open your Android SD card. This will show up as a Removable Device
4. Open the folder named CallLogBackupRestore and copy that file to a protected drive or simply that computer for future use

To restore your Call Logs simply open the Call Logs Backup & Restore application and select “Restore Call Logs” If your phone crashed or SD card malfunctioned, place your backed up file on your computer back into the CallLogBackupRestore Directory.

Also See: Backup Text Messages on Android

It is a hassle when you are messing with customizing your phone and you lose all your important data. Luckily, the good thing about the Android OS is the ability to automatically upload all your data (contacts etc.) to the “cloud”. Unfortunately, this does not entail the backup of your system settings, text messages and phone logs.

Don’t fear, and don’t buy any expensive solutions that claim to be the one touch backup king. Not that the PPU solutions won’t work nicely, because they do. However, in times like these, its much better to go the free route.

To backup your text messages and restore them, follow the steps below:

1. Go to the Android market, and download “SMS Backup & Restore”
2. Install the Application
3. Open the application, and select “Backup SMS Messages”
4. Wait patiently, at times this process can take a few moments

To backup your text message backup to your local machine (The extra care procedure, not needed)

1. Plug your phone into a computer via a USB cable
2. Go to your notification bar, and select “USB Connected” and then select “Mount”
3. Navigate to your computer and open your Android SD card. This will show up as a Removable Device
4. Open the folder named SMSBackupRestore and copy that file to a protected drive or simply that computer for future use

To restore your messages, simply open the SMS backup & restore application and select “Restore SMS Messages” If your phone crashed or SD card malfunctioned, place your backed up file on your computer back into the SMSBackupRestore Directory.

Also See Backup Phone Logs on Droid

This tutorial will show you how to manage your computers remotely while on the go with your Droid. This is helpful especially while on the go. You can now monitor your active torrents or grab an important file your forgot to sync while on the move and while at the office. Speaking of monitoring torrents from your device, a new lightweight option is to use this guide of monitoring and downloading torrents directly on the go. If you need help setting up a VPN on your home network, stay tuned to this site as a follow up article will be written soon.

On you Motorola Droid (Android 2.0 and 2.1)
1. Navigate to the menu and click “Settings”
2. Click “Wireless and Networks”
3. Click “VPN Settings” and click “Add VPN”
4. For this example we will be using a PPTP vpn. If you have another type of VPN set up at school, work or home, the directions will differ slightly.
5. After clicking “PPTP VPN”, give the VPN a name, this can be anything
6. In the box that says “set VPN server”, this is where you are going to inset a dns name or an ip. If you are unsure what the name is, contact your work or school to see if their is some kind of document. If this is a home VPN, you can get a DNS name through dynamic DNS.

http://www.dyndns.com/

7. For this example, I will use “MytestVPNname.selfip.com”
8. If encryption is enabled on the VPN, be sure to check the next box
9. Make sure you have cell service (3G not required but recomended) and click connect. The droid should bring up a notification stating that you are successfully connected.

So now that you are connected to the VPN, you can access any computer remotely on that network in which you have credentials for. The best way to do this is to head to the marketplace on your Droid and download the free version of Remote Desktop. This will allow you to RDC into any machine on the VPN network as stated before, allowing you to monitor your torrents, stream music, or grab an important file from work while on the go. The RDC program I have been using is “Remote RDP Demo”.

There are many applications out there to help you create the perfect ring tone from mp3′s already on your phone but that takes a little too much effort. In addition, you can use free tools to clip your sounds and simply copy them to your Android phone via USB cable. All these alternatives are easy but can take too much time.

Mabilo Ringtone is a free application on the marketplace that is very quick to download. You can download all the ring tones you want. The good part is the files on the application are updated daily by a user base of over 30,000 users. You can download the tones, set them specifically to certain callers. However, If you phone crashes for some reason or you feel you need to uninstall the application, all the ringers go with it.

Follow these easy steps to take those downloaded ringtones and place them in a more secure location.

1. Plug in your usb cable to the phone and computer.
2. On your phone, initiate the USB connection
3. On the computer, navigate to your phone’s SD card drive and find the folder named ” com -> mabilo”
4. Copy your ring tones in that folder to the directory “media -> audio -> ringtones” (NOTE: be sure to leave the tmp_preview file in the mabilo directory”

That is it! Now you can stream and download new ringtones as they are released and back them up so you never lose them. You can also download a free file explorer utility and do all this from your phone, instead of hooking it up to the usb cable.