The Android OS for smartphones is rapidly growing in popularity, but there are a number of users who find that it’s confusing to navigate the OS, and it’s not immediately obvious how some functionality is set up. The lack of a really good user manual also means that there are a lot of tricks that even expert users may have missed. The following guide contains some useful tips and tricks I’ve picked up along the way.

Setting up custom ringtones

• Here is the method for using your own sounds or music for notifications or ringtones:-
• Use the USB cable to connect the phone to your computer
• Drag a finger from the top of the screen to the bottom to open the Notifications screen on your phone and then select the USB Storage notification
• Choose Mount
• From your PC, browse to the SD Card
• Check for a folder called media, if it doesn’t exist, you can create one by right clicking anywhere in the SD card window and choosing New Folder, then rename the folder from New Folder to media
• Inside the media folder, you’ll need to have a folder called audio, again, if it’s not there create it as above
• In the audio folder, you can create a subfolder for each sound category you want to change as follows-

• • ringtones – sound files to be used as ringtones
  • alarms – sound files to be used for any alarms
  • notifications – sound files to be used for incoming notifications such as emails, tweets, SMS messages and the like
• Copy the sound or music file which you’d like to use as your ringtone in to the relevant folder
• You should now see your sound or music file listed in the menu for selection in the relevant sound settings menu. To find the notification settings, press the Menu button on one of your home screens, then press Settings then Sounds and Display.

Copy and Paste

To copy text (this only works in selected apps), long-press on the touch screen until a menu appears, one of the options is Copy Text. Select Copy Text and then drag your finger on the screen from one side to the other and highlight the words you’d like to copy to the clipboard. Then, long-press on the touch screen again to bring up the menu to allow you to paste the text.

Show a list of recently opened apps

To see a list of the apps recently opened on your phone- press and hold the home key and a menu should appear which lists the recently opened apps. You can then quick launch the apps from the list if you wish.

Tips for extending battery life

• Disable Always On Mobile Data Connection – There’s just no need for the thing to be permanently connected to the internet, so turn this one off by tapping Menu from one of your homescreens, then choosing Wireless Controls, then Mobile Network Settings and de-selecting Enable always-on mobile

• Use a task killer application. The very first thing any new Android smartphone user should do is make sure they can manage running applications somehow. In the case of the HTC Hero, a third party app is the best method as the built-in method of killing apps is fiddly to say the least. There are a number of apps out there that allow you to manage tasks, such as Taskiller and Advanced Task Killer. Ending unneeded apps frees up system resources, but if those apps were checking in with a server on the internet periodically, it’ll also reduce your data connection time too, both of which will help conserve battery power.
• Turn off wireless location – Your phone can use the wireless data connection to roughly work out your location. This is unnecessary as the phone can use GPS for location based services. To turn it off, press Menu, then go to Settings, then Location and untick “Use wireless networks”. You can leave GPS turned on as it is actually only activated when an app, such as Google Maps, needs to access it.
• Turn off wi-fi and bluetooth when not needed – This I guess is fairly obvious, but I know that it’s a bit of a chore to remember to turn off wi-fi when you’re finished with it. There are apps out there, such as the Y5 Battery Saver or the superb Locale (which was of one the Google Android Developer Challenge Grand Prize winners) that will do the job automatically for you.

Input special characters

To input special characters, such as characters with accents (eg: é, ë or ê) whilst typing, keep the base character pressed until a menu appears (eg, to get  é, keep e pressed), select the special character you require from the menu.

Wake up the phone’s screen whilst on a call

A question I keep hearing being asked is; how can I wake up my phone whilst I’m on a call so I can use the dial pad? I think a few of the hard buttons such as Home work, but I end up missing the button and ending the call all too often. I find the simplest method is just to click the trackball, you can’t mistake it for another key whilst you’re distracted.

Search for updates for installed apps

One feature of the Apps Market application that a lot of people don’t seem to know about is you can use it to search for and install updates for your installed apps. If you open the Apps Market and go to downloads, you’ll see a section called My downloads. Open it and you’ll see a list of the apps installed on your machine. Any which have an update available will appear at the top of the list where you can tap on them and then tap on Update and the update will be downloaded and installed.

Find out the IP address assigned to an Android device

From any homescreen, tap the menu button. Then choose Settings, Wireless Controls and then Wi-Fi settings. From there, tap on the wireless network you are currently connected to and you’ll see a list of useful information such as the connection speed, wireless channel in use and, of course, the IP address.

Capturing screenshots

• Firstly, you’ll need to install the Android SDK (from sdk/index.html”>http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html ). Make a note of the install location
• On your phone push the menu button
• Press Applications
• Tap Development
• Ensure that USB debugging is checked
• Connect your phone to your PC via USB
• From the Android SDK installation location, open the Tools folder
• Run ddms.bat
• Highlight your phone from the list on the left hand side
• From the menu at the top, click Device and then Screen Capture and you will generate a screenshot from your phone. You can now save the image if you’re happy with it, or, browse to the screen you want from your phone and hit refresh to refresh the screen grab.