How to connect your Samsung Galaxy S2 to your Laptop/PC by Bluetooth

 Bluetooth is one of the great technological advances over the past few years and no modern phone would be complete with out out. Whether you want to connect to another phone or a laptop Bluetooth is one of the best technologies you can use. In this guide we are just going to cover the method in which you connect the phone to a laptop (in this case running Windows 7).

Firstly you will need to turn on Bluetooth on your Samsung Galaxy S2. To do this you need to press "Menu" then "Settings". At the settings menu you need to click on "Wireless and network" and then "Bluetooth settings". This will take you to the screen on the right, at this point put a tick in the "Bluetooth" box to activate the Bluetooth and do a scan of the local area.

When you've located your laptop click on it and you'll get a screen similar to the one on the left. At the same time you're laptop will display a screen similar to the on the
right. If the codes correspond with each other click Accept on the phone and "Yes" then "Next" on the laptop. After a few seconds they should pair up and the laptop will install a number of drivers.

This will allow you to do a number of things, most notably play music from the phone through the laptop and move files. If you've downloaded a number of apps you really can add to what you can do and it's likely that there will be a remote control app (though I can't confirm this for sure sadly).

A guide on setting up speed dial on a Samsung Galaxy S2

 Although finding and calling contacts on a Samsung Galaxy S2 cell phone is incredibly simple via the contacts screen some people will prefer to set up a speed dialing system where you merely need to hold a number to call a contact. Setting up a speed dial contact is incredibly simply and something anyone can do.

Th start with you will need to open up the phone application (by default it'll be a big green button on your home screen). When you've done that you will need to press the phones "menu" button to open up a small menu at the bottom of the screen. When you've done this your screen will look something like the image to the right.

When you've opened that menu you will need to click on the top left option, the one called "Speed dial setting". After pressing that you will seen a screen that looks like the screen shot to the left with all the numbers and a + with them all. Select one of the numbers (between 2-9) and you'll then have to select the contact you want to associate with that number. For this example we've added "Bee" for the number #2 speed dial as you can see to the right.

If you go back to to your phone application and hold the associated number you'll call the contact with out needing to fiddle with the process of scrolling down your contacts. One thing you will need to remember is which contacts you've associated with which numbers. Trust me I wouldn't want to call Bee and go "Hi, how you dad?" or something similar.

How do I change the font size on a Samsung Galaxy S2?

One of the big questions we keep getting asked is how to change the font size of texts, especially in text messages with the Samsung Galaxy S2. To do this we need to enter the messaging application and then press "Menu" and then "Settings". When you do this you will see a screen like the one in the picture to the right. This is also where you may have changed the message skin in the past.

Below the "Message skin" option you will see the "Message font size" option. If you click on that you will see a screen like the one on the left. allowing you to select one of the 3 sizes available. Sadly if you are struggling to read the text there doesn't seem to be an in-built way to increase the size and instead there is oddly just the option to decrease the size.

How do I delete text conversations from a Samsung Galaxy S2?

The Samsung Galaxy S2, like many other modern phones, stores texts as a conversation showing the two peoples back and forth. Although this tidies up your inbox and outbox it can mean that you end up with really long text conversations that just end up going on forever. Alternatively you may just want to delete an angry row with a friend or even delete something before someone else sees it. If we click on the "Messaging" icon on the home screen we end up getting an image similar to the picture on the right.

To delete one of the conversations we need to hold down on one of them. For the sake of this example it's going to be "Kt" that gets deleted. If you hold on the conversation you get a contextual menu like the one on the picture to the left. If you click on delete you will be asked if it's OK. Click OK and the conversation will be gone within seconds.

Which folders do things go in on a Samsung Galaxy S2?

This site keeps getting people who have been searching for Folders on Samsung Galaxy S2 so lets if we can help.

This is just a list of the default registry files on the phone nothing else. The first list shows the directory from a Windows 7 (hence the "Computer") point of view the second is how you find it by using the phone.

Music: Computer\GT-I9100\Phone\Samsung\Music
Screen Captures: Computer\GT-I9100\Phone\ScreenCapture
Photographs: Computer\GT-I9100\Phone\DCIM\Camera (stored as JPEG)
Videos: Computer\GT-I9100\Phone\DCIM\Camera (stored as MP4)
Items downloaded via Opera: Computer\GT-I9100\Phone\download
Items downloaded via Bluetooth: Computer\GT-I9100\Phone\bluetooth

To find the items on your phone they can all be found via the "Gallery" application or the "Music" application.

How do I switch apps on a Samsung Galaxy S2?

We all like to multi-task where we can and we love to save time, so being able to swiftly switch between apps on your phone is almost a must. On the Samsung Galaxy S2 it's incredibly easy to switch between recently used Applications.

If you hold the "Home" key on any screen for more than a second or two you will see a screen like the one on the left here. If you press on any of the applications shown on your screen (which are the last 6 applications you've you've used) you can switch directly to that with out needing to go back to the home screen.

In this example we could switch to the music to change a song, then switch to Facebook to check any status updates and back to Opera quickly and easily.

How to use your Samsung Galaxy S2 as a GPS device

 One of the best "bonus features" about the Samsung Galaxy S2, as well as many other android phones is the fact they can be used as a GPS device. If you are somewhere unfamiliar then this really will make the phone worth taking with you all the time. Even if you are somewhere you know pretty well this can still be a very useful tool.

Firstly you need to turn on the GPS mode. To do this drag down the screen from a home screen to open up a screen a bit like the one on the right here. Make sure the GPS symbol is lit up (as you can see on the image to the right) and then go back to you
homescreen or application drawer and open up the "Maps" application (which will look something like the image to the left. The little blue on the maps application is "you" and as you move the little blue triangle moves on the screen.

In this example I've taken a screen shot (left) near ferry road then crossed over a bridge to "Promenade" on on the Isle of Walney. The GPS system tracked my every step and also shows all the roads around me that I may wish to walk down allowing me to plot a route.

Although this is brilliantly useful and really can help guide you around an unfamiliar location it does have some negatives. Firstly it does use your battery rather intensively so unless you're using it for a reason I'd advising turning the GPS light back off. Yes it serves it's purposes brilliantly but you really don't want to kill your battery when you're in familiar territory. The second issue is that is uses your mobile internet connection to load the maps up so it can also be very intensive and can, if over-used, be rather costly as well.

If you limit your use of the GPS system and the Maps app this is a really valuable tool and yet another reason that phones are becoming so key to our every day life. If however you use it willy nilly you will end up draining your Samsung Galaxy S2 of battery and running up a heavy data cost, so just be careful with it.

The quality of the Samsung Galaxy S2 HD video recording

If you really want to see the power of the Samsung Galaxy S2 one of the greatest features is the HD video recorder. In this blog entry we will look at a 20 second video (that is approx 41MB of hard drive space) taken using the phones HD recording capabilities. (Please excuse the sound Terry, who recorded it for me, is suffering with a really bad chest infection and we wish he recovers soon).

To access the HD recording of the phone you need to access the camera App then move the setting from "Camera" to "Video" in the top right hand corner of the screen. After you've done this it really is just a matter of point and click.

If you need to change the setting of the Samsung Galaxy then press on the cog icon as you would if you were going to change the still camera settings. You should be able to get some fantastic quality on your videos.

If the above video plays looking rough please visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoFC96D6R64 and select the 1080p option

How do I put music onto my Samsung Galaxy S2? (Via USB cable)

So you've got yourself a brand new Samsung Galaxy S2 android smartphone and you want to make the most of the 16GB internal memory by using it to store some of your MP3's and even use it as an MP3 player to replace your iPod. But how exactly do we put our music from our computer to our Samsung Galaxy SII?

Firstly we are going to look at the USB method of file transferring and to start with you will need to connect your phone to your laptop or PC via a USB-to-USB mini cable. If you've done this correctly you phone will look like the image to the right.
When you've connected your phone and your computer you will need to locate your phone in your computer. When you have located it (it will often show up as "GT-I9100") double click it to explore then find the "Samsung" folder which should have a folder called music in (if not you can create one).

Whilst in this folder you can feel free to copy and paste all your music from your computer to your folder as you can see in the image to the right which contains the vast majority of my music collection (yeah I like Apologetix).

I hope this answers the question of "How do I put my music on to my Samsung Galaxy S2?" Of course you can open up the same Music folder and delete things from the phone in the same way.

For those wondering on the full directory of the music folder, it's:
Computer\GT-I9100\Phone\Samsung\Music

How to delete an alarm from a Samsung Galaxy S2

So last week you had to get up early and now your on holiday and you want to sleep through with out the alarm on your Samsung Galaxy S2 going off and waking you up, but you don't know how to delete the thing.

We start this process back at the "Alarm" screen (which you find when you click on the "Clock" application). Whilst here you need to find the actual alarm you want to delete. For this example we've only got a single alarm set so we don't need to scroll through alarms to find the "offending" one.

When you find the alarm you want you need to hold your finger on the alarm until you see the small drop contextual menu you can see on the screen shot on the left hand side of this paragraph.

 After you press delete you will see alarm is gone and you'll not be woken up by it again. Of course if you want to re-create the alarm perhaps when a holiday has finished then you go through the usual steps to create an alarm.

How to send texts to multiple contacts with a Samsung Galaxy S2

 When it comes to wanting to send the same message to a number of separate contacts you can do it a few ways including by copying  a text or forwarding. The easiest way however is to send the text to a number of different contacts. With the Samsung Galaxy S2 smartphone this is actually a lot more simple than some may first think. Starting with a new text message screen such as the one on the right you simply add a single
recipient, such as the image on the right that has "Bee" as the first recipient.

To add a second contact you need to click in the box that says "Enter recipient" and type the name of the second contact you wish to send your message to. In the case of this example it's "Callieflump Womble". If you wish to add further contacts you need to repeat this stage over and over to add all the contacts you want.

When you are done adding your contacts you will see the first contacts name and then the additional number of contacts. You then need to write the body of your text and click send. It's all rather simple and although there are other ways to do it this is probably the simplest way to send a text to more than one person.

How to stop a number calling your Samsung Galaxy S2

We all do stupid things when we're hot headed and say things we probably shouldn't in the heat of the moment. There's always a time where we want to avoid a call from someone when we know their about to call. Thanks to one one of the features of the Samsung Galaxy S2 you can "black list" numbers to prevent them from calling you.

To add a number to your black list you need to open the contact's page such as Scott's
shown to the right here and then press on the menu button on the handset. This will open up a small menu at the bottom of the screen with 6 options. The option you need to select is more then "Add to black list" when the option comes up.

When you've added the black list you will see a little blue sign next to the persons number (as seen next to Scott's number in this picture). If Scott now tries to call my Samsung Galaxy S2 he'll just hear a dial tone as if my phone was switched off! Now I can avoid the ginger virgin with ease.

 To remove a number from black list you can follow this method but click on "Remove from black list" when you previously clicked on "Add to blacklist".





Although you stop the calls coming through you DO NOT prevent the number from sending you texts.

How to delete contacts from your Samsung Galaxy S2

So now you've got you're Samsung Galaxy S2 and all your friends numbers are on it but for whatever reason you and your friend have fallen out and you want to delete them from your contacts. To start to delete a contact we need to find them so press the "contact" app at a home screen and then find a contact you wish to get rid of. For this example we will be deleting Scott Graveson from the address book. I heard a nasty rumour that he's a fat ugly ginger virgin anyway.

When we've selected the contact you need to press the menu button on your Samsung Galaxy S2 to open up this small contextual menu. When this menu has popped up we select the delete option and then click on "OK" when the prompt comes up.

If we've accidentally selected the wrong person you will need to click "Cancel" to save your contact from being deleted from the phone. If you wish to re-add the contact have made up with them you will need to go through the typical stages of "adding a contact".

Of course simply deleting them from your contacts won't stop them from contacting you sadly but it will help stop you from leaving abusive messages on their answering phone or drunken texts.

Please note. Scott strongly denies being a ginger virgin though does accept he's fat and ugly.

Copying texts on a Samsung Galaxy S2

 Recently we looked at copying text from a website, though lets be honest you may want to actually just copy a text message you've been sent by a friend. Whether you just want a to store it in the phone or use it in an e-mail or a forum post it's something that is surprisingly simple.

To start this guide we begin at a text conversation such as the one on the right hand side here.and fine a text we wish to copy. In this case we will be using the rather mundane "What's a boxing bag? hah xxx" text as our text. You need to hold on the
selected text for a second or two and a contextual menu will appear entitled "Message options" (see screen shot on the left). The second option down is the one we want to use, so select "Copy message text". This will automatically put it on the phones clipboard allowing you to put it wherever you want.

For the rest of this we are going to pretend we want to e-mail it to someone so we've opened up a blank e-mail using the Gmail app. and have helped down on the text input
screen to open up the menu on the screen to allow us to "Paste" the selected text from the message. and as you can see in the image below, the message has been compied from the text from "Bee" into an E-mail! Viola!

 Of course you can copy things such a cheat for a game, or something poetic someone has said (and something a little bit more spectacular than we've used in this example.

How do I set my MP3's as an alarm tone?

Whilst we've recently looked at just setting a plain alarm some people really want to personalise these sorts of things and want to use their favourite songs as an alarm tone. Oddly although it's very possible it's not quite done the way you may have just "expected it" to be done. In fact for this guide we actually begin at the music app and not the alarm app. From here we need to find a song we want to use for this example I
will be using "Always Right Behind You" by the Zutons.

When you find the song on your music list hold on it for a second or two and you will see a pop up menu appear over the list of tracks. It will look something like the image on the life and from here you will need to select the "Set as". If this all feels rather familiar so far it's because it's the same method as setting a personalised ring tone instead of selecting "Phone ringtone" at the next screen you need to select "Alarm tone".

After you click on "Alarm tone" you will be taken back to the "Alarm" screen where you need to press "Create alarm" and create an alarm as you would via the usual alarm creation screen. When you've selected your time, days and volume you just need to click on "Save" and you've saved your own alarm with your own MP3's once again allowing you to add your own personal touch to your Samsung Galaxy S2.

How do I set an alarm on a Samsung Galaxy S2?

 To set an alarm on the Samsung Galaxy S2 firstly we need to find the Clock application. If you have this on a home screen then fantastic just find it and click it. If however you don't have it on a home screen you may need to open up the Application drawer and select it. If you look to the screen shot on the right hand side you can see "Clock", which is the one you need to select. Oddly there isn't an actual specialist "Alarm" app as some may have expected.

When you first open the Clock application you will see a screen like the one on the left here. From here it's relatively straightforward on setting an alarm. Obviously you click where it says "Create alarm" to start with.

After clicking on "Create alarm" you will see a screen like the one here on the right of the page. You use this screen to set everything about the alarm you want to set. From setting what time you want it to go off, to how loud, what days it goes off to what tun plays when it goes off. When you've set everything you want on your alarm you have to press save.

When you've saved your saved your alarm your Clock applications first screen will look like the image to the left with your times and days selected. If you want to selected a number of different alarms you can create another alarm by just following the above stages.

How to change your text skin on a Samsung Galaxy S2

One of the more obscure features of the Samsung Galaxy S2 is the ability to change how your text conversations look. The phone, by default, has 5 different "text" skins and can be changed very easily.

By default the message skin is "Blue" though to change it you need to access your messaging app then press the "menu" button and then settings. After doing that you should see a screen like the one on the right. The first option, as you can see is "Message skin".
After pressing on "Message skin" you open up a revolving menu that allows you to select one of the 5 in built skins. Although they aren't anything overly amazing it is another step towards personalising your Samsung Galaxy S2 smartphone and is yet another option for you to use in making your phone feel like it's really yours.

Although, using various applications, most obviously "Handscent" does allow you more options, for those that would rather not download Handscent this does allow you to set your phone apart from that of a friend.


To the left here is the default "Blue" skin whilst on the right we have the "Evergreen" skin in use. As you can see there is some difference there though admittedly it's not something that will set the world on fire. It would be nice to have some more impressive ones though it's a nice bonus all the same.

How do you manually call someone with a Samsung Galaxy S2?

Sadly with being a bit "technically advanced" I've sort of ignored the simple things with this website so far so now we'll take a look at one of the most simple things we could possibly want to do with the Samsung Galaxy S2, making calls. Of course despite the Android operating system, the Super AMOLED Plus screen and it's ravenous dual core processor the Samsung Galaxy S2 is essentially, a phone and phones are there to make phone calls.
To start we press the "Phone" icon on the home screen. By default the phone icon will be shown on every home screen on the bottom left corner (if you've rooted your phone it may be possible that you've moved it). Pressing the phone icon opens a screen like the one to the left. From here you enter the phone number you wish to call. This is the "manual part" of the call (as opposed to calling a contact).

When you've completed entering the number and any area code you may need to enter press on the small green phone icon. Press on the green icon will see an option screen
popping up allowing you to either use the dialer to make the call or "SkypeOut". If you've got free minutes or wish to just make a normal phone call you will usually use the "Dialer" option though if you've got a connection to wi-fi using SkyeOut could be a better option for you.


Of course if your contact is stored on your phone you can click contacts and call through either the dialer contact tab or the normal contact app from the homescreen with the same option to call via Skype or the Dialer.

How do I copy and paste text from the web with a Samsung Galaxy S2?

 A lot of people on the internet have been asking how to copy bits of text from websites on to their Samsung Galaxy S2 cell phone. The funny thing is that the in-built browsers makes copying much more difficult than using the (much better) alternative Opera Mini browser.

If you wish to use the default browser you need to hold the screen where a word is. You will notice that you get a magnifying glass type of thing over the screen, if you release whilst on the word you'll get an option like there is shown on the screen shot to the right. If you stretch the marks apart you can copy more text though this method is somewhat slow as it seems to take longer than it should to drag for multiple words.

 Using opera mini you start with the same concept, press and hold on the screen and when you get a menu screen like the one shown on the image to the left you need to choose the "Select Text" option. From here you can select whole pages by dragging your finger along the text and this will highlight it blue. As soon as you release your
finger from the screen you will get a new menu come up with an option to "Copy". You can then do plenty with what you've copied, whether you want to use it to post on a website forums or an e-mail or even a text.

To paste your copied text you need to hold your finger in a "message box" such as the box you would enter a text message or an e-mail in. When you hold your finger on the screen you will see a pop up menu (see the screen capture to the left) with the option to paste. As soon as you select paste you will notice all the text you selected appears in the box.

To the right here you can see an excerpt that was copied into a text message using the Opera mini browser to copy and the default messaging app to paste. The actual amount of text you can copy and paste in this method does seem to be incredibly large and I've yet to stumble on the limit, though it would be fair to assume that if you wanted to copy and paste a huge amount the Samsung Galaxy S2 may have it's limits or take a moment to copy.

This is one of the many times that using Opera Mini is an advantage over using the default browser which has a number of limitations and I'd advise downloading either Opera mini or Skyfire for a number of reasons not just this one.

Edit:
Thanks to a comment by Material girl I've been playing about with this and realised that if you drag the little "quote marks" when using the default browser you can use that to highlight more than just a single world.
Thank you to Material Girl for pointing this out.

The text from the copied screen capture is from:
The Samsung Galaxy S2 review on Helium.com