How to take a Screenshot on a Samsung Galaxy S2 with ICS

When the Samsung Galaxy S2 first came out it was using the "Gingerbread" version of Android since then however the Galaxy S2 has been updated to "Ice Cream Sandwich" (or ICS). Whilst the update to ICS was a pretty big step forward it also changed a few things about how the phone operated, notably how a user took a screen shot.

 Originally to take a screen shot with the Samsung Galaxy S2
 a user had to press the Home Button and then swiftly press the power button, as described in our original guide.

Now however the user needs to press and hold both the volume down and the power button for around 2 seconds. After doing this the phone screen will "flash" and you will get a message like the one in the screen shot on the right with the phrase "Saving Screenshot..."  This means your screenshot is taken.

A few seconds after the "Saving" message you will see a new message saying "Copied to clipboard" then you are all done and the image is saved. From here you can either "Paste" the image into an e-mail or message (as long as it's still in your clipboard) or go into your gallery and find the "Screenshots" folder, where the screenshots will now be stored in.

Note-This isn't as easy as the old method, so you may find yourself needing practice. The best advice is to hold both buttons until the screen flashes, if the volume shows on the screen however try again.

How to activate driving mode on a Samsung Galaxy S2

One of the useful in built features of the Samsung Galaxy S2 are the voice commands and driving mode options. To access these you need to press the "Home" button twice in quick succession and this should bring up a screen like the one on the land hand side.

From this you can easily give the phone a number of vocal commands, for example you can make a call or "write" a text by telling your phone what to do. You can also make the phone "talk" to you by turning on "Driving mode".

When "Driving mode" has been turned on you will see a green light underneath the car (like in the picture on the right of this page). After pressing on "Driving mode" you will notified by a computerised female voice of things like texts and phones calls.

To turn these vocalised alerts off you merely need to open the "Voice talk" screen (the one in the screen captures) and turn off driving mode by pressing the icon again. Obviously we advise using the "Driving mode" option if you're driving rather than physically looking at your phone (which we do not advocate) though of course if the phone is just sat in your pocket you really won't need driving mode to be activated.

How to hide your lock pattern on your Samsung Galaxy S2

Last summer we did a guide on setting up the pattern lock screen on a Samsung Galaxy S2 and since then we've learned something new about the pattern lock screen, how to "hide" your entry. Firstly you will need to set a pattern lock screen on your phone (guide to doing that can be read here) and then you need to go back to the "Location and security" settings screen (where you found the lock screen options).

When you are back in the "Location and security" menu you will notice some new options in a sub menu called "Screen unlock settings". Amongst these options is the "Use visible pattern", if you untick this check box and then lock your phone and go back to the pattern screen you will notice that the lights don't light up if you slide your finger across them.

Whilst this may seem like an unnecessary extra step it does stop people from seeing you entering your pattern and as a result it does make your phone more secure in the case of someone else getting a hold of it.

If you wish to get the lock pattern made visible again just tick the box and the visible lines will return next time you go to your lock screen.

What is the white line on my Samsung Galaxy S2 pattern lock screen?

If you look carefully at this screen shot you will be able to see a faint white line on the screen between today's date (Monday, 30 January) and the alarm (Tue 7:30) and charging icons (4%). A lot of people have been talking about this on forums recently and  have been worrying about some sort of possible screen error.

If you are worried about this single white line you need worry no more as it isn't just normal but actually serves a function as it breaks up the screen to show you things that
you may wish to know about. If you look at this second screen shot you'll see that the line is still there though the screen has the "Connect your charger" warning again breaking up today's date from the message.

If you are still worried about the line you can just check any other screen on your phone and you will notice it disappears. It really is normal and not something to worry about.

So the big question is why is it being spoken about on forums now a days? Well I'm not actually sure as the line has been on the screen since we first covered the pattern lock screen back in Summer last year.

How to sort songs on a Samsung Galaxy S2

A while ago Scott showed you all how to add music to a Samsung Galaxy S2 and now I'm going to show you how you can sort your music by Genre, Composer, Folder or even the Year. This does, in theory make it easier for you to make specialised play lists on your computer and transfer them over (which I will explain in a future guide).

As you may expect this guide starts at the "Music" app so make sure to open up the app so you see a screen something like the one on the let handside. When you're here you need to press the phone's "Menu" button which will open up an options menu at the bottom of the screen. From this menu you will

need to select "Settings" which will on up a screen with 4 more options in a list. You will be able to see options for "Equaliser", "Sound effect", "Music menu" and "Visualisation", from here select "Music menu".

The "Music menu" should give you a list of things, such as
"Albums", "Artists" and "Genres" (see the picture on the right of this paragraph for more of the list) each with a tick box. From here you need to select the options you want to be able to use, personally I'd advise "Albums", "Artists" and "Genres" though you may wish to select "Year" if you have a particular year that you love.

When you've selected all the options you'd like to use you need to go back to your music player screen then use your finger to scroll across the options at the top. You need to scroll things like "Artist" across and you'll soon come to the new options that you added from the "Music menu".

One thing to note before you become hugely comfortable about this. If you've not sorted your music properly (like Scott who took these screenshots) you may notice that some of the Genre's, Artists and Albums  (and everything else) can be a bit of a mess to say the least.

Where did I get all these extra pictures from?

If you are using a Samsung Galaxy S2 (and I presume any phone running Android 3.5) you may have recently noticed your Gallery has a number of new albums and a host of new pictures, as if they've appeared randomly. What you may have noticed about each of those new albums is they have a small white logo on them that looks oddly enough like the Picasa logo (feel free to visit http://picasa.google.com/ if you wish to check the logo). Now, although I'm not 100% certain, it does appear that the update to 3.5 now allows you to access your Picasa/Blogger/Google+ images directly from your phones "Gallery".

Although I've not done a huge amount of testing with this and it may require specific settings to do, it could well explain why so many people have suddenly seen the amount of images on their phone jump from a few hundred to thousands almost over night.

This shouldn't be a major issue for many people though it is worth noting that all your blogs pictures are now on your phone (which means I have over 600 from this blog!)

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 turn Haptic feedback off on a Samsung Galaxy S2

 When using a Samsung Galaxy S2 you may notice that that screen vibrates when you touch it, a small vibration as if to acknowledge that you've been touching it. This function is called a "haptic feedback", and laymans terms is basically "feedback to being touched".

Whilst it has it's uses some people don't like it and want to know how to turn it off, this
guide is to show you how to disable it in only a few quick steps. Firstly you need to access the the settings menu (like in the screen shot on the left) and then access the "Sound" options. In side the sound options you will see a screen like the one on the right hand side.

At the bottom of the screen (you may need to scroll to it) you will see the option called "Haptic feedback". You will need to uncheck this box and then you will notice that the vibrations stop.

You can of course feel free to turn this back on if you ever want to use it in the future.

How to factory reset a Samsung Galaxy S2

 With modern phones we seem to end up passing them on to friends and family though before we pass them on we need to give them a factory restore to delete all our information from the phone. This guide will show you how to factory reset a Samsung Galaxy S2.

Firstly you need to open up the phones settings menu and scroll down to "Privacy". The privacy screen should look like the screenshot to the left with 3 options but the key one is the bottom option, "Factory data reset". Click on the "Factory data reset" option and you will see a new screen.

The new screen will look something like this one the one on the right of this article. It will explain what a factory reset actually does so make sure to know what a factory reset is. Also make sure you actually do want to factory reset your phone before going any further.

When you've read everything and are sure you still sure you want to reset the phone click on "Reset phone" at the bottom of the screen and then "Erase everything" on the screen that follows.

After this the phone will go into an "auto-pilot" and stop you from doing anything as it resets the phone to it's "new" factory state. This will delete everything stored on the "internal" storage (so contacts, apps and system settings) as well as erasing all accounts associated with the phone (so the handset will no longer be getting E-mails, twitter alerts etc).

Whilst this guide is specifically for the Samsung Galaxy S2 which are where the screenshots are from most Androids can be factory reset in a very similar way and hopefully it answers the question of "How do I factory reset my phone?"

How to safely disconnect the Samsung Galaxy S2 a USB connection

When you've connected your Samsung Galaxy S2 to a PC or laptop by USB and done all the stuff with either KIES or dragged and dropped all the stuff you need to do you'll want to safely remove your phone from your computer. Usually to do this sort of thing you need to click something on your laptop however with the Galaxy S2 things are easier.

Instead of "safely" disconnecting you need to look at your phone and you will see a screen like the one on the left. If you click "Home" on the phone at this screen it will disconnect you from the PC connection. If you wish to leave the phone to charge you can leave the phone physically connected but outside of the "USB connection mode".

How to add words to the Samsung Galaxy S2 dictionary

 We've recently looked at adding words to the Swype dictionary though lets be honest not everyone is a fan of Swype and some people do like to use the default Samsung keypad on a Samsung Galaxy S2, fear not you too can add words to your dictionary.

Firstly you will need to open the setting screens and then find the "Language and keyboard" settings which will look something like the screenshot to the left. In here you will need to select "Samsung Keypad".


After clicking on the "Samsung Keypad" option you will see a screen like the one on the right hand side. You may need to scroll down to find it though the option you need to select is "XT9 advanced settings" which you can see in the image on the right.


In the "XT9 advanced settings" screen you need to scroll down to "XT9 my words" which is quite close to the bottom of this screen. This is where all the words you've added to the dictionary can be found...including those you've added by accident when you've mistyped something.


Whilst in the "XT9 my words" screen (see the image to right) you will find a host of words you've added. On this screen you need to press the phone's "Menu" button and you will be see an option on the bottom of the screen saying "Add". Click on the "Add" option and then type the word into the following screen and select "Done". After clicking on "Done" the word will be registered on your XT9 dictionary.

Whilst this seems an awful lot of effort you can add a lot of words at once when you get to the "My words" part of it so add a bunch of words and you'll be fine.

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 do I add a Yahoo e-mail account to a Samsung Galaxy S2?

 In the past we looked at adding a hotmail account to your Samsung Galaxy S2, now we look at adding a yahoo account so that you can sync up your phone with any yahoo e-mails you may be getting.


For this guide we've gone through the settings menu as opposed to using the "E-mail widget". For this you will need to open up the settings and the scroll down to "Accounts and Sync" which will look like the screen on the right. At this screen you need to select "Add account" from the bottom of the screen.

After clicking on add account you will see a screen like the screen shot to the left. From here you need to select the "Yahoo! Mail" option which should be near the top of the options. After clicking on "Yahoo! Mail" you should see
a login screen like this one on the right.

At the login screen you need to enter your full yahoo e-mail address and your password. For your yahoo e-mail address you can also use a "rocketmail" e-mail address as well as yahoo.co.uk and yahoo.com. After entering your login details untick the "Set as premium account" box and select "Next" from the bottom of the screen (you will need to scroll down).

After pressing next the phone should connect with the server and soon afterwards you should be logged and synced up.

Note-As well as setting up a yahoo mail account this way you can also set up your hotmail or msn account in a similar fashion (clicking on hotmail instead of yahoo). If you feel this is an easier method than going through the "e-mail" widget (there really isn't much difference).

How to delete text threads from a Samsung Galaxy S2

Due to the way the Samsung Galaxy S2 (and Androids in general) store the texts in "Threads" (or "Threaded conversations" if you prefer) the texts are kept pretty tidy by default. One of the best things about threaded conversations though is how easy they are to delete from the phone. Whether you want to delete some texts from an ex, a friend or just delete something a company has sent you, this guide will show you exactly how you delete those threaded conversations from a Samsung Galaxy S2.

Firstly you will need to open your text app, which should look something like the image on the left. This will show a list of all the text conversations on your phone with the persons picture, their name, the latest message and the date all being shown. What you need to do at this point is hold your finger on the conversation that you want to delete. For this example we are using "Tara Lewis" so I held my finger anywhere in her "block" (from the picture to the date).

After holding your finger down you will notice an option (see the screen shot on the right) with "View contact" and "Delete thread", at this point you need to select "Delete thread". After this you will be given the screen you can see in the screenshot to the left with a choice to "Cancel" or "OK" the deletion.

Please note- Only use this method if you want to delete all the messages in a conversation as that is what this does, it completely deletes the conversation from your phone. If you want to delete specific messages they you will need to open the thread and delete the messages individually.

How to add music to your videos on a Samsung Galaxy S2

 One of the questions we've seen asked on forums regarding the Samsung Galaxy S2 is "How do I add music to my videos?" This is a question that is actually remarkable simple and yet incredibly effective, especially if you want to make a home made "music video".

Firstly you obviously need to have your video, so make sure you film the video you want to use. After this you need to open up the "Video Maker"

app (you made need to look in the app drawer to find it). Then choose "New" on the first screen and select a theme (I advise using none) then find your video. Once you've found your video drag it to the bottom of the screen then click on the musical note. Now you can select a song from your phone, when you've found the one you want to use drag it to the box under your video and you'll have added music to your video.

Now to find the video with your music add you will need to press "menu" and then export the video which can take a little while, but afterwards the video should be found in your gallery in a folder called "Video Maker"

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 to create a playlist on a Samsung Galaxy S2

 Although iPhone users may think iTunes is the only way to listen to music on a phone they are, as usual, not correct. Whilst iTunes is probably the best way, it's far from being the only way. One of the things that all music listeners like to be able to do is create play lists, whether it's something like "Music to relax" or "Romantic" or whatever it is they like to be able to just listen to a specific selection of tracks. It's not only iTunes that you can make playlists on.

To make one on the Samsung Galaxy S2 is incredibly simple and this guide will show you exactly how to do. Firstly open the default music player and then select the "Playlists" tab and press the phones menu button. This will leave you with a screen that looks like the one on the right hand side.
After selecting "Create" you will see a screen where you need to enter the name of the playlist and then you will see a screen like the one on the left with the name of the playlist at the top (in this case "Mash ups") and the option to "Add music". Click where it says "Add music".

After clicking on "Add music" you will see a be given a list of all your tracks allowing you to select the songs you want. As well as being given all your tracks you can select "Artists" or "Albums" from along the tabs at the top of the screen if you want to narrow down the lists. You need to select all the tracks you want (in this case a bunch of mash ups) and then press on "Add" at the bottom of the screen.
After pressing add and going back to the play lists you will see your new playlist added to the list. Remember you can make 100's of play lists so one for ever mood (or every occasion). A great use for this is to keep all your podcasts into a single list, or even keep a specific podcast list (for example a "Fighting Talk Podcast play list").

Whilst this is simple enough to do on iTunes, owners of Galaxy S2's needn't feel ashamed by their phones music player either.

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.

What phones are the best Android phones currently available?

So far we've looked at the best Budget Androids and the best Androids with a Qwerty Keyboard, but lets just take a look at the out and out best Androids currently available. These are for those who like to be up-to date and have the money to burn on a handset to make people say wow, so I wouldn't advise reading on if you're on a shoestring. Unlike most "best android" lists we're not going to look purely at the 4 most impressive handsets but the handsets that standout for whatever reason, they are the best of their own type, if you will.

Samsung Galaxy S2
The king of the Androids is the Samsung Galaxy S2 which is a dream phone it features a huge 16GB of internal storage (with space for a 32GB memory card), a lightning quick 1.2Ghz dual core processor, with HD video recording ability and 1GB of RAM. As well as the internal technology the screen is huge, clear and bright and makes the most of AMOLED technology.
As well as being a hugely impressive piece of technological kit Samsung have managed to compress the handset down into something that is just millimeters thick and yet has all the power you could wish to have in your hands.
Whilst the phone is impressively powerful this power can be a drain on the battery which is maybe the only major issue with the phone and whilst some people aren't a fan of Samsung's "Touchwiz" system it does work well (and can be changed easily enough if you really hate it).

HTC Sensation
There is only really one phone that can rival the Galaxy S2 and that's the HTC Sensation which HTC's top handset at the moment. Like the Galaxy S2 the phone has a 1.2Ghz dual core processor and HD recording facility as well as running Gingerbread though where the phone, for me falls down is on the lack of internal storage.
Although not as technologically as impressive as the Samsung phone it does hold it's own and gives a very solid alternative. The phone uses HTC's own user interface (HTC Sense 3.0) and if you've been a HTC fan for a while you'll know exactly what to expect with a very sturdy and reliable piece of kit.
Whilst the phone isn't quite as good as the Galaxy S2 in terms of raw numbers it will appeal to some people much more as it's thicker and feels much tougher and although it's "second" it's a very, very good second and can be found at slightly cheaper prices.

LG Optimus 3D
The LG Optimus 3D is a funny one, for most it's the only 3D handset currently worth owning (being a better option than the rival HTC EVO 3D) though as a smartphone it's not the most impressive. Whilst it comes with Froyo pre-installed you can upgrade it to Gingerbread and whilst it "only" has a 1Ghz dual core processor what it brings to the table is 3D.
The phone is chunky, it's heavy, it's thick it feels a bit sluggish at times but it brings wonderful 3D effects, a screen that jumps out at you and the ability to not only take 3D pictures and take 3D video but the ability to watch 3D films as they were designed to be watched.
At the moment it seems 3D hasn't really taken off in the mobile phone world though the LG Optimus seems like it's a trend setter and although it's not the best phone on the market and in fact it feels like a limited "smart phone" it does bring something very fresh and original to the market.

Sony Ericsson Xperia Play
When the Play was first rumoured it seemed likely to be the phone that revolutionised games on a mobile phone. At the time it was dogged with a price tag that simply didn't make sense and was frustratingly buggy for the price. Now a few months on from it's release and after scathing comments about the price it's now come down to a level that seems more realistic.
The phone is a gaming device/phone hybrid that combines what resembles a PSP with a high tech Android phone (running Gingerbread) and for gaming is the top phone by quite a margin thanks to what are effective proper games as opposed to the games that the Android system is known for.
Whilst we are still waiting for some really killer games on the phone and it's not a match for things like the 3DS it's by far the best gaming phone out there. If you want to play games and carry just a single device this is your best bet, if you however want a phone, I'd actually say avoid it and look at the Galaxy S2 and Sensation.

The secret tricks of Android live wallpapers

 In the past we've looked at setting different wallpapers on the Samsung Galaxy S2, with one of the options being "Live Wallpapers". Whilst some of the Live wallpapers are a bit...boring or have a technical function (think of the weather wallpapers) others have secret little things to do.



The "Galaxy" wallpaper (see the screen shot on the left) is one of the more boxing live wallpapers. Whilst it's normal effect is quite good the only "trick" here is that you can "tilt" the galaxy image by dragging your finger to a corner.

 The "Nexus" wallpaper creates lines where ever you touch the screen. Whilst this is almost the android version of a windows style screensaver it is fun to see that you do have an effect when your press on the screen.
The best of the secrets on the Live Wallpapers is on the "Microbes" screen (see left) in which pressing on the screen places some white dots. These dots act as "food" for the microbes who will run over them and then multiply so you can end up with a screen full of microbes like in the screenshot.





Whilst these are pointless little secrets it still just adds something, in fact the Microbes screen sort of gives you a mini game if your incredibly bored.