How to solve the "The device has either stopped responding or has been disconnected" error on a Samsung Galaxy S2

 Having recently updated both my version of KIES and my version of Android I've come across a number of  issue regarding file transfers from my Laptop to my Samsung Galaxy S2. The most notable of those was that when I was trying to place files onto the phone I was getting an error sayig "The device has either stopped responding or has been disconnected" despite the device still being connected and still visually looking like it was working.

Although I never solved the actual reason as to why I was getting this error I've concluded it was due to the update of either Android or the incredibly irritating "KIES" software. Instead of coming up with a solution that would make things as easy as they used to be I instead found a work around. The work around involves using the phones
in built menu's to use the phone as a USB storage device.

Firstly you will need to open the phones menu screen (see above) and then open the "Wireless and Network" settings where you'll be able to find the option for "USB utilities" (see the screen shot on the right). At this point make sure your USB cable is not already connected (or disconnect it if it is already linked to both the phone and the laptop/computer you are using).



After you have clicked on "USB utilities" you will be greeted by the screen on the left with just a single option. When you see this screen you need to press where the phone says "Connect storage to PC".

After  doing the above you will be prompted to connect the USB cable to use mass storage (see the image to the right). This is the first point where you should connect the USB cable if you are going to be using this "work around".


After connecting the cable you will see a screen like the one on the left with the green Android having a hand like a USB device. From here you need to open up the explorer in you computer or laptop and find a "Removable disk" with the right amount of memory (for the Galaxy S2 it should be 11.5GB). From the explorer you should be able to copy files onto or take files from the phone and generally use it as a USB memory card style device. This allows you to easily put music, ROM's, pictures and videos onto the phone.

How to use the inbuilt Task Manager on a Samsung Galaxy S2

 We've all become well accustomed to task managers in general, especially Windows PC users who may use it to close programs that aren't running properly or have become resource hogs. Due to the fact phones are now mini computers they two have got task managers.

In the past Android users generally relied on 3rd party apps such as "Advanced Task Killer" to close apps that were using up the battery or not running properly. After all this is what PC users were doing at home, the problem was that the "Advanced Task Killer" wasn't actually as good as people thought it was.

With the move from Android Froyo to Android  Gingerbread Google started to include

there own, much better Task Manager. This allowed you to accurately and proper close apps that were draining your resource or had basically crashed. With the Samsung Galaxy S2 you just need to hold the home button for 2 or 3 seconds to get to the shortcut to the Task manager. If you see the image to the top left this screen appears when you hold the home button, if you click on "Task manager" you will get taken to the screen on the right.

From the screen on the right you can see the applications you have open and and the ability to close (or "Exit" them) as well as clearing the memory (click RAM) or checking free storage (click on Storage). This is much simpler and much more effective than "Task Killer" apps you'll find on the market and is really where you should head if you feel your app has frozen.

How to add new fonts to a Samsung Galaxy S2

In the past we've looked at changing the font on your Samsung Galaxy S2 but by default there is only 3 fonts, now we are going to show you how to add a whole lot more! Before you begin going into your settings screen and click on "Applications" and tick the box next to "Unknown sources".

After allowing "Unknown sources" with you will need to download "Font for Galaxy SP" from the market, this is a free app and can be used for any Samsung Galaxy phone so if you've stumbled here and are using a different Samsung Galaxy model you can follow the guide anyway!

When you open the app you will see something like this, click on the F in the middle to open a list of fonts that the app has. Whilst the list isn't exhaustive and it does miss a lot of well known fonts it does have a really decent amount. When you select one one you can see how it looks and decide before downloading it whether or not you like it.



When you find one you like and want simply click on it and the phone will automatically download it so pull down the notification bar (like in the picture to the left) and click on the newly downloaded font to install it.






After installing the font you need to follow the guide for changing font so go into your "Settings" and open up "Display" and then "Screen display" before opening the "Font style" option which should now list your new fonts (like the image to the right). So whether you want a bold font, a small font, an italic font or something else, you'll likely find one there somewhere.

Just note you will need to add every font individually (which is a bit time consuming if you want to add a lot of fonts) and the app doesn't have all the fonts you may be used to using (for example no "Arial" and no "Times New Roman") but there is a lot of choices open to you.

How do I move apps to a different screen on a Samsung Galaxy S2?

So you've got some apps on your homescreens and have decided to move one or two for whatever reason but can't quite work out how...well actually it's really simple. You need to hold your finger on whatever icon you want to move (for this example "Internet") and you'll see it "bubble" slightly and the screen will show a "frame". When you see the frame on screen drag the icon to side of the screen that relates to the screen you want to put it. For example your on screen 2 and want to move the icon to screen 1 you need to drag it to the left, if you want to move it to screen 3 you'd drag it to the right.
When you've moved page you need to place the icon where you want it an into an available space then drop it and it will sit nicely on your new page.

You can of course choose to move it back at any time or take it off the homescreens altogether if you wish.

A secret trick for the Swype keyboard

 We've all made a mistake when using the swype keyboard and managed to spell the wrong word. On some phones using a trackball to navigate to the mistake and correcting it is simple, on other phones however you need to accurate press on the screen and move to the error, this can be rather fiddly.

A hidden feature on swype makes the accurate movement of the cursor much easier than using the trial error of pressing on the screen. In the image to the right hand side is an error (the "us" should read "is") so we have to correct this. To start we run a finger over the swype key (bottom left key) and the 123 SYM key. Just pretend these are two letters.
After doing that you will see the keyboard dramatically to resemble the image on the left here with a host of new and useful tools to allow you to accurately and swiftly navigate to the error and delete it (see the screen shot below).
By using the arrows and the delete key to delete the error and leave the cursor where the error was. If you then press on the ABC key at the bottom you will be returned to the keyboard to enter the correct text.


In the screen shot below you can see the corrected text as it was supposed to look when it was originally written.

A different way to turn Swype on!

 I recent shared a way to turn on the Swype keyboard function well it appears there is more than 1 way to skin this Swype cat. This way sees you going through the settings options to turn on Swype rather than going through the message screen.

To open the menu screen to start with you need to press the phone's "menu" button then click on Settings. This will show a screen very similar to the one shown on the right. The actual option you need to select here is the "Language and keyboard" option. The Language and keyboard options
can be seen to the left of this paragraph. On this screen you ideally need to select on "Select Input Method" (if you have changed it via the previous technique then this option will look very familiar to you.

After moving onto the method screen you will be given 2 options you can either use the default "Samsung keypad" which is the phones built in keyboard, or you can select the Swype method which has an altered keyboard and a very unique input system that sees your "swyping" the screen to form your words (though you can also do single button presses as well).

As with the other technique I would advise you do try out Swype on your new Samsung Galaxy S2 before you decide it's not for you.