Connecting a Samsung Galaxy S3 Smartphone to Wifi

One of the greatest features of modern smartphones is the fact the phones can be connected to Wi-Fi effectively giving you unlimited internet on your phone. Whether you're at work, at home or in somewhere like a Café you tend to be able to get access to a Wi-Fi system somewhere. So it seems to make sense to do a guide to show you how to connect to a Wi-Fi system on a Samsung Galaxy S3.

Firstly you need to go to the phones home screen then press the menu button. This will open up a menu like the one in the screenshot on the left. From this menu you need to select the bottom option "Settings".

After clicking on "Settings" you will see a huge list of options allowing you to change almost anything to do with the phone. Rather than scrolling up and down all the options you need to click on the "Wi-Fi". You will then be told to "Turn on the Wi-Fi". To do this you need to drag the grey circle beside "Wi-Fi" across until it turns into a green block.

After turning on your Wi-Fi you again need to click "Wi-Fi" which should do an automatic scan of the area and give you a list of available Wi-Fi connections (as well as storing any you may have previously used). If the phone doesn't do an automatic scan you will need to to select scan from the bottom of the screen to prompt the phone into doing a scan.

Hopefully when you were doing your scan you found the connection that you
are wishing to use, in my case the connection is the "SKYE18EB" connection, then click on that connection. If the connection then requires a password you will need to enter the password (see the screen shot on the right) an then click "connect".

After clicking on connect the connection should authenticate (if you enter the correct password) and then obtain an IP Address. After this has been done you should be able to connect to that connection at will (as long as it's in range). With your Wi-Fi connected you will be able to surf the net, watch videos, use facebook/twitter and anything else you would want to do online, often with a faster connection than the one you'd have via mobile internet.

Note-This guide should work with pretty much all phones running Android 4.0.4.

How to upload a file to "Box" on your mobile phone

Recently we've been wanting to test out some of the "cloud" services which allow you to store and share various files in "the cloud". We decided that as "Box" offers 5GB of free storage that we'd try their service (instead of Dropbox which offers "just" 2GB of storage).

First we we had to make an account with Box who emailed us and within minutes we had 5GB of cloud storage it was brilliant. After logging we were greeted to a few PDF
which we never actually read (though we are assuming they are guides for things just like this).

The upload files you need to login and then press the phone's "menu" button which will load up a small menu on the the screen with 6 options. From those options you need to select "Upload" from the top right corner. After pressing 
"Upload" you will see options as to which type of file you want to upload, when you've selected the type of file your phone will help you find the files by letting you open up a relevant app. For example clicking "Photo" will let you use the "Gallery" app to select a picture.

When you've selected the file you want to store you'll see a screen with your file and the files details (like this image on the right). If you've selected the correct file you need to select the "Upload" option from the bottom of the screen (if it's the wrong file you accidentally clicked then just press "Cancel"). Also on this screen you're able to rename the file (by pressing the files name).

After pressing "Upload" you will see the screen change to one like the image on the left here with the file added to the top of the list and a blue mark on it. The blue mark will move across the file as the upload takes place and when it's done you will be able to access it anywhere in the world (as long as you can get online).

To access your box account on a computer you need to go to www.box.com and login. Whilst originally this was used by business with people wanting to access work files whilst not in the office, you can now access this sort of service as a personal user and it allows you to store files up to 25MB in size for free (which can be upgraded if you want to pay a monthly fee). If you find yourself wanting to upload multiple files at once, you may wish to read our guide on doing that.

Currently "Box" have apps available for Android, iOS and Blackberry, though I'd assume that a Windows version will be released in the foreseeable future.

How to take Panoramic photographs with the Samsung Galaxy S2

 With such a brilliant quality single shot camera the Samsung Galaxy S2 could be forgiven for just resting on it's laurels however the camera can also take fantastic panoramic photographs as long as you know how...and how a good enough view. Firstly you need to open the camera app and then clicking on the cog icon in the bottom left corner.

After clicking on the cog icon you will notice the camera settings menu which you can see on the screen shot to the left here. The option you need to select is "Shooting mode" which by default is set to "Single shot". You need to, rather predictably select the
"Panorama" option.

 After selecting Panorama you will notice the bottom of the screen changes slight and shows a number count out of 8. What you need to do is take a single picture and then follow the on screen guide lines as the phone automatically takes the following  shots to create a panoramic photograph of the area by piecing it together.

 This is an image taken of my back garden, the first image was taken of the tree on the far left and the final image just caught the side of the conservatory.

This image is another example of a panoramic shot.

I'd advise using these sorts of photographs for the times when you're in the countryside or at the beach and wanting to capture a long shot, though both of my examples were taken by turning on the spot and taking a more "circular" image as opposed to true panoramic photographs.

How to accept or reject calls with a Samsung Galaxy S2

When you receive a call on the Samsung Galaxy S2 you will see a screen very similar to the one on the right. The next step is really easy and simple though some people do seem to be struggling with it (hence the reason for this guide).

What some people have been doing is merely pressing the coloured icons expecting that that will either accept the call or reject it. Instead what you need to do is "pull" or "drag" the icon across the screen. If you want to accept the call drag the green icon from the left of the screen across to the other side whilst if you wish to reject the call you drag the red icon across from the right side of the screen. Alternatively to reject the call you can leave it to ring out or even reject call with the message option.

To use the reject call with message function you need to drag the option up and then select the message you wish to send. Our next will look at setting up those messages to be personalised.

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.

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 put music on to shuffle with the Samsung Galaxy S2

 One of the questions I was recently asked about the phone was how do you play the songs on random mode or shuffle. Someone had told them that it wasn't possible with the default player, though I knew I'd managed to set it on to shuffle. Firstly you need to load up your music player. We are using the default "Music" app for this guide, though I know that other alternatives are out there.

The music app will look something like the screen to the right with a list of songs and bands. Sadly clicking the menu button here, which is how you'd expect to select shuffle mode, doesn't actually give you the option. What you need to do from here is select a track and load the track up so you get the song playing screen.

When you get a screen that looks something like this (it may show the album cover or a Visualization screen depending on how you've personally set it). Around the middle of the screen here you can see a "shaded" area with the running time (00:46 from 04:26 in this example) as well as the boxed A (with is the replay function) and on the left hand side you see two arrows. This is the shuffle mode. Just press it to select or deselect it.

Whilst this is easy enough it seems an over-sight not to have it accessible from just the menu buttons, though I think (I might be wrong) that this is an Android issue and not one exclusive to the Samsung Galaxy S2. If you want to play your songs randomly this is by far the easiest way to do it and doesn't involve needing to download any applications.

How to Format a memory card with the Samsung Wave

 For this guide I'll be showing you how to format the memory card for a Samsung Wave. The phone it's self accepts either a MicroSD or a MicroSDHC memory card up to 16GB but the guide for formatting them is the same for both memory cards. You are advised by the manual for format them this way as doing it through a computer can cause incompatibility issues.

As with all the guides for the phone we'll start the home screen which looks something like this. If you have a settings widget you can cut out a few stages though we'll go the long way and start by pressing the menu button

 After pressing the menu button you will bring up a menu similar to this one. From here you want to click on the "Settings" icon which is in the bottom left hand corner and looks like a cog. In this image it's directly above "Keypad". This will open a long list of options for you to tinker with.

What you need to do on this screen is scroll down to the one that looks like a Pie Chart and is called "Memory". It's about 3/4 of the way to the bottom of the phone and is in a section which includes "Reset", "About Phone" and "Security".

 If you actually have a memory card in the phone you will see these options (if no memory card is present the first option won't actually show on this screen). It's the first option that was need to click on as it's the memory card we want to be formatting and not the phone's memory (which can be done via the bottom option of this menu).

 After clicking on the "Memory card details" screen you will see a screen similar to this. The details may be different (for example you might have named your memory card or it may have different numbers). If you look in the bottom left you will see a small button that says "Format", this is the button you need to click on.

After pressing "Format" you will see this screen. If you want to format you should click yes. Before you do this stage make sure if the card has ANYTHING on it that you want to keep, back it up before you format it. If you press "No" and go back you will be able to back up and copy the data on the card to either the phones internal memory on a computer. Remember anything on the card when it's formatted WILL be deleted.!

After this the card will be set up perfectly for your phone and for you to put music on it or use it to store your photographs. Now when you connect the phone to a computer you can click "Mass storage" to access the memory as well as "DRM media" to access the phones internal memory.

How do you clear the chat logs from a Samsung Wave?

 This guide for deleting chat logs begins at the home screen which looks something like this by default (though can be made to look very different depending on what you've done to the phone to personalise it). Whilst on this screen you need to press the "Dial key". The "Dial key" is the soft key on the left of the phone under the touch screen and is shown on page 19 of the of the phones manual.

 You will end up with a screen a bit like this (with out the black marks which have been used to hide numbers of the innocent). This will be a log of the calls and texts you've received. If you've saved the numbers as a contact their name will be displayed here (as seen by Vodafone) otherwise the number will show up. From here we want to click clear in the bottom left hand corner.

 After selecting clear this screen will pop up and you can either select them individually or select them all. You pick which option suits you, in this case I'll be deleting them all so I'll click on the "Select all" option near the top of the screen.

After selecting all, each of the boxes will get a blue tick in them to say they've been selected. If we click "Clear" again it will delete all of the selected numbers and names so you can clear your call log. The function of this is relatively limited though some folk don't like having a log whilst others just don't see the point in having one, though it can also stop you from accidentally calling someone back, which I'm sure we've all done at least once.