Database Users

Apps2SD via Google Froyo :)

Comment 559 by af9210, Today (2 hours ago)
will the feature require a certain class speed sd card
Comment 564 by [email protected], Today (28 minutes ago)
@559 - As with any software which needs to do a lot of I/O - the faster the card the
better.
Delete comment Comment 565 by af9210, Today (8 minutes ago)
@564 i understand... do you have knowledge about how it will be implemented..... for
instance do we need to create a separate partition ie ext2 ext4 etc?
Comment 566 by [email protected], Today (1 minute ago)
@565 - We've gone to a lot of effort to ensure you *don't* have to repartition / format your cards for this to work. We coexist with the existing FAT32 partition on the card to ensure compatibility with your existing cards/devices.
sounds pretty good development by the android team huh

sounds good but if i remember correctly the reason the community a2sd devs make it so you have to use an ext partition was to help prevent piracy, and of course have your phone usable when the sdcard was mounted by the pc. i wonder if google came up with a new type of copy protection.

godsfilth said:
sounds good but if i remember correctly the reason the community a2sd devs make it so you have to use an ext partition was to help prevent piracy, and of course have your phone usable when the sdcard was mounted by the pc. i wonder if google came up with a new type of copy protection.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
However Ext partitions don't stop you pirating.
I can still get ALL of the installed apps off my phone if I need to and that's using my phone. No special software needed as such (nothing that's not free on the market anyway).

Yup, sounds like a new encryption method.

Yep, noone can boot up an ubuntu cd and mount the ext partition...
More likely it's because fat32 can't handle linux style file permissions.

godsfilth said:
sounds good but if i remember correctly the reason the community a2sd devs make it so you have to use an ext partition was to help prevent piracy, and of course have your phone usable when the sdcard was mounted by the pc. i wonder if google came up with a new type of copy protection.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They could install protected apps onto internal flash - as they do now. Most of apps aren't protected, so we'll still have a lot of additional space.

My theory is that rather than a separate partition, it'll just create a file of xx amount of size on the mem card, then fill it up. It'll probably be somewhat of a safe measure, as it'll most likely be encrypted and of a filetype that isn't common (or it could even be some kind of internal compression method such as zip, but a self written program).

They said they wouldnt do it until they figure out a way to encrypt it.
Ill take it thats what they did.

Yeah, they did say it would not come till they hashed out some piracy measures, not that they will help whatsoever, but they did say that.

I don't understand what the big deal is.
Couldn't they have just done Apps2SD for all free apps and called it a day?
No one is purchasing 500 megabytes worth of apps.
Offloading all the free ones to the SD = BOOM.
Easy and would have absolutely zero consequences on piracy.

Current methods have no consequences on piracy, future methods have no consequences on piracy. Hopefully the gave up worrying about something they can never stop.

GldRush98 said:
Current methods have no consequences on piracy, future methods have no consequences on piracy. Hopefully the gave up worrying about something they can never stop.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What is this word you speak of piracy, never heard of it

GldRush98 said:
Current methods have no consequences on piracy, future methods have no consequences on piracy. Hopefully the gave up worrying about something they can never stop.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ever heard of cloud computing?

Paul22000 said:
I don't understand what the big deal is.
Couldn't they have just done Apps2SD for all free apps and called it a day?
No one is purchasing 500 megabytes worth of apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is a very bold statement to make.
Once you can install applications to your sdcard, what's to stop you from purchasing ONE program that is, by itself, 500 MB?

Has anyone encountered a problem as far as apps that are able to move to sd and then disappearing from app menu? As well as icons on homescreen turning to android generic icons? I can still access the apps from homescreen ,manage apps and astro but as i said the icon for the app on the home screen changes to somewhat of a generic looking android icon. One of the apps in question is titanium backup.
Now if i go to manage apps and place apps back to phone everything reappears in its rightful spot. Could it be a temp glitch in froyo? Some setting i might have missed? Any info would be appreciated...thnx

Yes it happened to me, every applications I moved on the sdcard suddenly disappeared from the menu. I had to move one of them on the phone to make them all reappear. As I don't have so much applications installed (~25), I moved them all back to the phone until this is fixed

Lemim0uth said:
Yes it happened to me, every applications I moved on the sdcard suddenly disappeared from the menu. I had to move one of them on the phone to make them all reappear. As I don't have so much applications installed (~25), I moved them all back to the phone until this is fixed
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
cool, thnx for the response. Least i know i didnt screw something up lol.

Drane said:
Ever heard of cloud computing?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
100% irrelevant to this thread and what I was talking about.

What Android 3.1 DIDN'T Fix!

Still no sdcard slot!
Still no USB On-The-Go memory device support (we have USB joystick support but still no memory devices)
I haven't tried abusing the Camera Connection Kit yet to see if I can use a camera as a memory card reader.

scotty1024 said:
Still no sdcard slot!
Still no USB On-The-Go memory device support (we have USB joystick support but still no memory devices)
I haven't tried abusing the Camera Connection Kit yet to see if I can use a camera as a memory card reader.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The SD card is a motorola issue, not a google issue. This has been pointed out in many, many forums.

what about Linux connection via usb. Can anyone confirm if this has been fixed?

vBulletin typing (like XDA) still sucks.

timrock said:
what about Linux connection via usb. Can anyone confirm if this has been fixed?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's never been a problem. 3.x and higher use MTP so they can stop using FAT32 for internal storage. Linux does MTP just fine. What are you talking about?

jdclucidly said:
It's never been a problem. 3.x and higher use MTP so they can stop using FAT32 for internal storage. Linux does MTP just fine. What are you talking about?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
why was this method needed? Xoom will not show up as a drive, unless you do this. Where as with the Droid X, once plugged in, it showed up as a drive. I hope this makes sense.

timrock said:
why was this method needed? Xoom will not show up as a drive, unless you do this. Where as with the Droid X, once plugged in, it showed up as a drive. I hope this makes sense.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
USB Mass Storage is the old method and it shows up as a drive. The Droid X is older than the Xoom therefore it is using USB Mass Storage.
MTP is Media Transfer Protocol and is the method used by 3.0 and higher.
How is it that you're using Linux and you don't understand this stuff?

jdclucidly said:
USB Mass Storage is the old method and it shows up as a drive. The Droid X is older than the Xoom therefore it is using USB Mass Storage.
MTP is Media Transfer Protocol and is the method used by 3.0 and higher.
How is it that you're using Linux and you don't understand this stuff?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
really? you cant just answer the question? maybe im new to linux. maybe im dual booting. If you dont want to answer, don't. No need to for the rude responses.

slack04 said:
The SD card is a motorola issue, not a google issue. This has been pointed out in many, many forums.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmmm, from Android Honeycomb 3.1 Details ...
...Android 3.1 still isn’t intended, at the operating system level, for managing external storage devices. This detail, which came out in conversations I had with Google engineers today, explains why the Android file system organization is, well, a mess...
“We don’t want to expose the user to file locations,” explained Hiroshi Lockheimer, director of engineering at Google. “How do you manage that as a user? The not-good answer is with the file browser.” Lockheimer says that many of the experiences I’ve seen so far are what individual hardware manufacturers have enabled, as opposed to what Google has provided natively. The good thing is that Lockheimer says Google is looking at ways to do this; but the problem hasn’t been solved yet...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

I still dont understand why they havent added (or, in fact, have removed) the "clear all" button in notifications. If I download more than 2 files it really annoys me. (I'm OCD about unchecked notifications)

timrock said:
really? you cant just answer the question? maybe im new to linux. maybe im dual booting. If you dont want to answer, don't. No need to for the rude responses.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
He did answer you. The xoom uses mtp which will not show up as a drive in Linux unlike older android which used mass storage. Mtp allows you to add files with out having to unmount the file system on the xoom. There are many threads on how to set mtp up. If you're new to Linux it may seem hard to do but its simple. Do a Google search for mounting xoom Ubuntu and you should find them easy.

Just-in-time said:
He did answer you. The xoom uses mtp which will not show up as a drive in Linux unlike older android which used mass storage. Mtp allows you to add files with out having to unmount the file system on the xoom. There are many threads on how to set mtp up. If you're new to Linux it may seem hard to do but its simple. Do a Google search for mounting xoom Ubuntu and you should find them easy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you. And i meant answer without the snide remark. Thanks again for explaining.
Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk

i know just what you mean, however i quite enjoy having the (X)s to click to get rid of them. I would like to see a slide to delete in the notifications aswell

Dubar said:
I still dont understand why they havent added (or, in fact, have removed) the "clear all" button in notifications. If I download more than 2 files it really annoys me. (I'm OCD about unchecked notifications)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
totally agree. there are lots of things i understand why they're waiting, but this? come on. i could clear all on my phone.

I just want to clear up a misconception about MTP. It is not a cross platform solution for transferring files.
My post from another thread on the subject:
I can mount my Xoom in linux using libmtp and mtpfs, however, it's slow, kludgy, and generally feels like it will flake out at any moment. Additionally, even when it's mounted, I can't seem to copy music across properly; it doesn't keep the folder structure. In fact, the directories are created and any non audio files are copied across fine, but every mp3/audio file is flatly dropped into the Music directory.
I tried to copy some music onto it from my fiancee's windows xp laptop and it worked ok (though the album art didn't appear).
The move away from mass storage to MTP is a massive disappointment for me. Mass storage has always been a big selling point for me when purchasing a device and for Google to switch to using a Windows specific protocol and consider it cross platform is a big letdown. MTP on mac requires a special app and on linux, support is dire, certainly for anything more complex than simply pulling images from a camera.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can just about get files onto the xoom, but I can't load music onto it; all of my mp3s just land up in the top level of the Music directory, regardless of how I attempt to transfer the files. I think transferring a zip file of the music and unzipping from within a file manager on the xoom might do the trick, but this isn't a good, workable solution. I understand the reasoning behind MTP, but it most certainly isn't cross platform and shouldn't be mentioned as a working solution by Google.
Hopefully people will soon realise not to keep insisting that the xoom has linux support when using MTP.

New update for drag racing is really choppy, lile playing angry birds on a g1.... but samauri II and the other thd games run smooth...dont kmow if its 3.1 kernel cuz it plays fine on my mytouch4g
XOOM

slack04 said:
The SD card is a motorola issue, not a google issue. This has been pointed out in many, many forums.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If that is a motorola problem and xoom is a barebone system. Who's gonna fix it, how?

stevebakh said:
I just want to clear up a misconception about MTP. It is not a cross platform solution for transferring files.
My post from another thread on the subject:
I can just about get files onto the xoom, but I can't load music onto it; all of my mp3s just land up in the top level of the Music directory, regardless of how I attempt to transfer the files. I think transferring a zip file of the music and unzipping from within a file manager on the xoom might do the trick, but this isn't a good, workable solution. I understand the reasoning behind MTP, but it most certainly isn't cross platform and shouldn't be mentioned as a working solution by Google.
Hopefully people will soon realise not to keep insisting that the xoom has linux support when using MTP.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Change all the extension names in the song file name to .mp and it will allow the transfer
Then use something of your liking, I use astro file manager, and just add the 3 on the a tail end of the extension.
Its a b, but you can at least get a couple good songs on there.

stevebakh said:
I just want to clear up a misconception about MTP. It is not a cross platform solution for transferring files.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're right, it's a cross-platform solution for transferring MEDIA, being the Media Transfer Protocol.
It's smart enough to detect the media files that it supports and put them in the right place. I prefer it over the old way, I hated having to unmount the sdcard every single time.
A poorly made Linux MTP library doesn't make it not cross-platform. It's an open standard for transferring media to USB devices.
It's not perfect, but it's great for a device like the Xoom where unmounting the internal memory is not desirable.
Honestly users get really confused by all of the extra directories when mounting an android sd-card anyways.

slack04 said:
The SD card is a motorola issue, not a google issue. This has been pointed out in many, many forums.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually, it has been a big debate on rather it is Google's or Moto's issue, but I am sure that we all can agree that it needs to be fixed no mater whos issue it is.

Official MicroSD card support, what Google has said

So, apparently, it is still not supported and Google has no solution yet.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2275..._details_emerge_the_little_things_add_up.html
This detail, which came out in conversations I had with Google engineers today, explains why the Android file system organization is, well, a mess, and why I’ve had such inconsistent experiences with Android and removable storage across the various Honeycomb tablets I’ve tried (and I’ve tried all of them that are available so far).
“We don’t want to expose the user to file locations,” explained Hiroshi Lockheimer, director of engineering at Google. “How do you manage that as a user? The not-good answer is with the file browser.” Lockheimer says that many of the experiences I’ve seen so far are what individual hardware manufacturers have enabled, as opposed to what Google has provided natively. The good thing is that Lockheimer says Google is looking at ways to do this; but the problem hasn’t been solved yet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Is it me or does that say nothing still?
Google says they don't want to give you a file browser / file explorer / file manager.
Fine - there's plenty of third party apps to that on the market - but why not fix the SD card slot support?
Although I agree that some of the structure stuff is a bit of a mess - there's lots of random folders created on the SD card, like .android_secure, .bookmark_thumb etc. that you probably don't want end users seeing.

At least now it's clear that it's Google who has to fix the SD Card issue and not Motorola.

poisike said:
At least now it's clear that it's Google who has to fix the SD Card issue and not Motorola.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I honestly didn't read that at all...?
I read that google were working on some sort of file manager, not SD card? am I misreading it? as far as I can see file manager, and SD card are separate issues?
also the transformer, and custom kernels have the sd card slot working, so not sure who is at fault for the xoom

Why is there a difference between the tablet and the phones?
I have access to the SD Card and file system there.
Not like every Windows user on the planet has never seen "My Computer". Organizing files is not some obscure concept that is to high level for users.

From what I can understand:
USB file system means the OS access the usb disk in block level which the app (file browser) will have access to the full path of the file.
The one that is supported by Honeycomb right now is MTP. This is totally different compared to USB. The actual file system is implemented by the device, not by the computer's operating system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Transfer_Protocol
My prediction, this USB thing will be solved by the upcoming ICE CREAM SANDWICH.
Because by then, phone and tablet are merged ... everything which is supported by phone (like SD card) must be supported by tablet.
So, yeah, we must wait till end of this year or early next year (worse case).
Still, it is too long for Motorola with their "promise", no?

@Kcarpenter
Very true - but I think the problem may lie with the Xoom using the MTP instead?
or is that a load of rubbish?
Eitherway, I guess from the Google point of view - they want it simple and try and hide the stuff they don't want n00bs messing with (a bit like Apple hide everything too so all their iOS are n00b proof!)
Also Phones open up to mass storage straight to the card - you don't get access to the internal memory at all. Whereas with the Xoom you would want access to that because there's loads of space there

gogol said:
My prediction, this USB thing will be solved by the upcoming ICE CREAM SANDWICH.
Because by then, phone and tablet are merged ... everything which is supported by phone (like SD card) must be supported by tablet.
So, yeah, we must wait till end of this year or early next year (worse case).
Still, it is too long for Motorola with their "promise", no?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What about just fixing the kernel like timat's - that'd do the same job for now

Still don't understand why they would slack on getting the SD card implemented. They have so much riding on honeycomb success. And the LTE radio needs to get installed too. Time to ramp it up.

I agree they should be able to enable it considering one of our own has already done so with a custom a kernel, I still love my xoom though!
Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk

mwaychoff said:
I agree they should be able to enable it considering one of our own has already done so with a custom a kernel, I still love my xoom though!
Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
agree completely.
and the LTE thing is running on awhile now - didnt someone say that the samsung tab 10.1 might beat Xoom to be the first LTE HC tab if Moto don't buck up?

Who needs google when you have bigrushdog?

Just did the 3.1 update and SD card slot still doesn't work. I thought it would've fixed this.

Yea, I read that article yesterday. It has NOTHING to do with the sdcard support.
Google was explaining why android in general has a fairly chaotic/unintuitive filesystem structure... NOT why they haven't biuld in support for SD.

it was well known this update was not addressing the sd slot. No wjere not one single ppace has google or moto saidnthe sd lotbwil not be active by the deadline they stated. They could give us slot access right now but the issue is as has been aluded to they would either have to give full file sys access or no file access like the phones. For those that will say it doesn't matter give us access. It matters to them as they will be creating huge issues with tech support by the much larger majority of users that would delete things that would kill or hamper the device. I mean even on here you have tons of people that can't follow clear simple directons to flash an update without screwing it up some how. Can you imagine Suzzy home maker or joe the guy who can not figure out how to do a windows update would do with full access. My guess is they will be doing a update with a file manager and permision set so nothing past the sdcard parent folder can be accessed and programs installed will have premissions set to prevent accidental delete without going into the file manger settings to change them to allow change of permisions.
This will solve both the issues and allow both sd card and internal storage access without opening up the core files to tinkering by BDUs

Drop Box/Online Storage

Not sure if you guys have used this but Ive found it pretty handy for online storage. Called drop box, you get 2Gb free and can upgrade and get more if you need it!
http://db.tt/2yz87DL
If anyone else has found simliar apps that offer more storage would love to know so just post here!

ShaunD103 said:
Not sure if you guys have used this but Ive found it pretty handy for online storage. Called drop box, you get 2Gb free and can upgrade and get more if you need it!
http://db.tt/2yz87DL
If anyone else has found simliar apps that offer more storage would love to know so just post here!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Right. And by clicking that referral link above, both parties get a little extra space.
It's a pretty popular online storage / file sharing service and along with the DropBox Android app, a great extension for storage on tablets.

gammaRascal said:
Right. And by clicking that referral link above, both parties get a little extra space.
It's a pretty popular online storage / file sharing service and along with the DropBox Android app, a great extension for storage on tablets.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Indeed, so far loving it!

Another online storage tool is Spideroak. It works across many platforms including Android and Linux. I am still in the process of testing it out. Not quite as intuitive as Dropbox. But I used the promo code *worldbackupday* and got a free upgrade to 5GB of storage. Not bad.

I'm using ubuntu one for my tablet and pc with ubuntu
Wysłane z Acera A500

Just trying out Asus Web Storage. It has a very cheap option for unlimited storage.... Tempting!

I personally can't think of any use for these online storage systems. It would be okay if you could mount them and then have all your applications be able to access the files there directly, but if you always have to copy stuff back and forth first then... meh.

Well the great thing about DropBox is that it integrates into windows just like a regular folder.
Once you've installed the application (which has a very small footprint) you can use the Windows 'Send To' context menu option and send anything to the DrobBox folder on your computer and it syncs with the account, making whatever you put in there available from any web-connected device. (either in a public or private folder which you can also set up)
You can also setup shared folders between people/teams which has a semi-type check-in/check-out feature that shows when others are working on them. So, say I'm working on a design doc - I can open it directly from my DropBox folder (since its a regular windows folder) make changes, edits etc, save it and it syncs the new version with anyone else I'm sharing the folder with.
As far as the tablet goes, it really is an extension to storage but only in a minimalist sense. Launching the Android App shows you all your DropBox folders and you can navigate though folders and open files or download them to your tab (without having to mount the tab to your computer or do that SD card dance). The primary point being, you can access them directly from the DropBox app and not actually have them on your tab.
I use it mainly to store books and other documents (also my bootanimations and screenshots) so when I want to access them (or give access to them) I can share the link, or open the files directly on my tab - make changes, save and it saves to DropBox.
It really is flawless and elegant.

gammaRascal said:
It really is flawless and elegant.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's also entirely reliant on people and systems over which you have no control. It can fail without warning, just because something between you and their servers goes wrong, and you have zero assurance of security either.
I hate the "cloud". I think it's stupid, pointless and potentially downright dangerous. You have zero control over your data or who has access to your data.

FloatingFatMan said:
It's also entirely reliant on people and systems over which you have no control. It can fail without warning, just because something between you and their servers goes wrong, and you have zero assurance of security either.
I hate the "cloud". I think it's stupid, pointless and potentially downright dangerous. You have zero control over your data or who has access to your data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What.are.you.talking.about?
All that reads like over sensitive hyperbole and paranoia to me.
You're suggesting that just because you have files in your DropBox folder that it's unsecure?
Anything can fail without warning - that's hardly an ongoing and preventative concern of mine. I could turn on the light in my bathroom and *might* pop and yet, here we are. I'm not about to take a flashlight in with me every single time *just in case*.
Your HDD can fail. Your CPU can pop. Your MB can short... I mean, what are you expecting? Putting files on DropBox is no more unsecure than burning it to a DVD or copying it to a Flash drive or leaving it on your HDD.
There are *levels* of security and DropBox is far more secure than you give it credit. If security is a serious concern of yours, turn off the internet.
And regarding the cloud. See paragraph 2.

gammaRascal said:
Well the great thing about DropBox is that it integrates into windows just like a regular folder.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know it does on Windows, but my tablet doesn't run Windows.
As far as the tablet goes, it really is an extension to storage but only in a minimalist sense. Launching the Android App shows you all your DropBox folders and you can navigate though folders and open files or download them to your tab (without having to mount the tab to your computer or do that SD card dance). The primary point being, you can access them directly from the DropBox app and not actually have them on your tab.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's the whole point why I don't like these kinds of things: it's cumbersome if I always have to go through this or that application first in order to use a file. It should just be mounted on a specific directory and that's that. I can only hope someone will create something like that for Android soon.
I wonder though if there is any way of mounting SSH connections, like for example as through Fuse as is possible on Linux. Then I wouldn't have to worry about these kinds of things at all as I have ample amounts of storage space on my server.

The company I work for, one of the largest IT corporations in Europe, SELLS cloud services. I know what I'm talking about.
Your files are not secure, no matter the assurances you're given, and Dropbox has had some pretty major security flaws in the quite recent past. And as a recent screwup on Amazon's cloud services recently showed, if something goes wrong or some dumbass makes a mistake, you might not even get your data back intact. That sort of thing happens a lot more often than you think, too.
Hell, we sell the bloody services to the world, but our own internal network services are down more often than a whores knickers!

FloatingFatMan said:
The company I work for, one of the largest IT corporations in Europe, SELLS cloud services. I know what I'm talking about.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not questioning whether you know or don't know what you're talking about.
FloatingFatMan said:
Your files are not secure, no matter the assurances you're given, and Dropbox has had some pretty major security flaws in the quite recent past. And as a recent screwup on Amazon's cloud services recently showed, if something goes wrong or some dumbass makes a mistake, you might not even get your data back intact. That sort of thing happens a lot more often than you think, too.
Hell, we sell the bloody services to the world, but our own internal network services are down more often than a whores knickers!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They are secure. Which, as you know, is a relative term.
If you need *more* security then don't use it. I don't know how much simpler it can be.
WereCatf said:
I know it does on Windows, but my tablet doesn't run Windows.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's why there is an Android App. The service is a ubiquitous sharing that acts like a regular Windows folder while in the Windows environment. It's not *beholden* to the Windows environment.
WereCatf said:
That's the whole point why I don't like these kinds of things: it's cumbersome if I always have to go through this or that application first in order to use a file. It should just be mounted on a specific directory and that's that. I can only hope someone will create something like that for Android soon.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not sure how you can suggest it's cumbersome if you haven't tried it. Open the DropBox application, navigate to a file and select it and it opens in whatever app you have it set to open. They only different between than and opening a native application and then finding the file you want to open and opening it is that using the DropBox method, the file has to be downloaded first - which maybe is a thing for you, I don't know.
If you want it on your tab, select the file and download it - it saves to the local DropBox folder and at that point you can access it locally like any other file. The only other option is to manually put the file on your tablet - via cable, SD card, email - whatever method you see fit. To me, *that's* cumbersome.
Like I said, DropBox is more about access than storage. People use DropBox because they want access to files over the web in the same manner they would over a home network (without using bloated VNC's and multiple programs). If you have no need for such a function then DropBox doesn't sound like something you'd use.

gammaRascal said:
I'm not sure how you can suggest it's cumbersome if you haven't tried it. Open the DropBox application, navigate to a file and select it and it opens in whatever app you have it set to open. They only different between than and opening a native application and then finding the file you want to open and opening it is that using the DropBox method, the file has to be downloaded first - which maybe is a thing for you, I don't know.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It doesn't differ at all from opening file manager, navigating to samba share and downloading a file from there. That's why I said I'd like something that allows me to mount the whole thing as a regular directory on my tablet, THEN it would be useful. Like for example, the eBook reader I have shows as a collection all the books I have. If the cloud storage was mounted on a directory I could just point the eBook reader to that directory and POOF, they'd all be visible and accessible without having to copy anything back-and-forth.
Unfortunately there seems to be no such service for Android. Atleast not yet :/
If you have no need for such a function then DropBox doesn't sound like something you'd use.
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Look, I'm not bashing DropBox. I just voiced a wish for additional functionality. I already have DropBox-like functionality via file manager and browsing to either Samba-share or SFTP-share, with 2Tb storage, on my own server, but if I could just mount the thing on a directory it'd be a lot, LOT more useful.

gammaRascal said:
What.are.you.talking.about?
All that reads like over sensitive hyperbole and paranoia to me.
You're suggesting that just because you have files in your DropBox folder that it's unsecure?
Anything can fail without warning - that's hardly an ongoing and preventative concern of mine. I could turn on the light in my bathroom and *might* pop and yet, here we are. I'm not about to take a flashlight in with me every single time *just in case*.
Your HDD can fail. Your CPU can pop. Your MB can short... I mean, what are you expecting? Putting files on DropBox is no more unsecure than burning it to a DVD or copying it to a Flash drive or leaving it on your HDD.
There are *levels* of security and DropBox is far more secure than you give it credit. If security is a serious concern of yours, turn off the internet.
And regarding the cloud. See paragraph 2.
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Do a Google search using the terms Dropbox Security Breach and then read the article at CNET, a reliable IT information source. FloatingFatMan is right, at least about the security of Dropbox. I'm a bit leary of the Cloud for the same reasons. Do you know who is controlling your data or any of the folks who have access to it?

*yawn*
Yu huh...

USB Mass Storage Mode?

OK, what Kit Kat ROMs have USB mass storage mode?
If a ROM does have it, exactly how/where is it enabled?
Either a ROM doesn't have it or if it does the dev hides it some place and requires digging through 100's of stupid pointless posts to maybe if you are lucky, find the answer.
I'm at the point with this USB mass storage B.S. that I'm ready to leave Android completely and get a flip phone. Whomever thought it was a good idea to remove it was an idiot and whomever signed off on it was even a bigger idiot.

Lokifish Marz said:
OK, what Kit Kat ROMs have USB mass storage mode?
If a ROM does have it, exactly how/where is it enabled?
Either a ROM doesn't have it or if it does the dev hides it some place and requires digging through 100's of stupid pointless posts to maybe if you are lucky, find the answer.
I'm at the point with this USB mass storage B.S. that I'm ready to leave Android completely and get a flip phone. Whomever thought it was a good idea to remove it was an idiot and whomever signed off on it was even a bigger idiot.
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MTP is absolutely terrible, completely half baked and totally unreliable.
Right now I just discovered that ChromeOS doesn't even support MTP... Google's OWN PRODUCT...
I'd like to know the answer as well.

I understand the frustrations but the problem with mass storage is that it surrenders all control of the internal storage to a PC not a problem when that's a different chip but on the n7 and most new smartphones its an emulated partition and giving over total control would mean that android cannot function at the same time. This was brought in to stop manufacturers using two separate chips giving you loads of "storage space" but very little application space. Its a work in progress and has many issues but its here to stay I don't think any ROMs will support USBMS as it not possible on a single chip without shutting down android.
Sent from my C5303 using xda app-developers app

LOL. In camera mode you have access to the "Pictures" folder and is readable by Windows and other OSes. All that needs to be done is duplicate the same process and direct it to a folder called "Storage" with full permissions for the folders contents. This essentially simulates USBMS. You can even redirect mounts to that folder so that apps see it as a storage area as well so things like map data and so on are put in the "Storage" folder.
I don't have the time to mess with this but it can be done and something almost exactly like this has been done before on almost every OS.

Lokifish Marz said:
LOL. In camera mode you have access to the "Pictures" folder and is readable by Windows and other OSes. All that needs to be done is duplicate the same process and direct it to a folder called "Storage" with full permissions for the folders contents. This essentially simulates USBMS. You can even redirect mounts to that folder so that apps see it as a storage area as well so things like map data and so on are put in the "Storage" folder.
I don't have the time to mess with this but it can be done and something almost exactly like this has been done before on almost every OS.
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I imagine it can be done but it wouldn't be mass storage and would require apps to be compatible it may have been done on other systems but how much space should this storage folder be allocated because it would no longer be avalible to install apps. In camera mode android still retains control of the folder other os can read that folder but files must be copied off the device to be edited. It would be good if android could mount the SD card as mass storage.
Sent from my C5303 using xda app-developers app

No it would not technically be mass storage, thus the "simulated" comment. As far as other OSes, it's already been done to a point on android already via the simulated partition that's already in use. This has also bee done using third party apps to mount folders as virtual drives.
App compatibility, if the folder is used as mount point then it is transparent to the OS and the apps. This has been done for some time now using third party apps.
The folder size could have the same limitations that the storage area has already been limited to. If coded so that it is part of the boot process then everything outside of system apps would only see the virtual area. Kind of like what's being done right now.
Dual mount. This has been used with much success and allows for PC and Android access to the same storage area at the same time.