Database Users

Theft Tracker?

I almost got my phone stolen(some friend my friend is)and was wondering if there was a way to track my phone if it gets stolen. I paid $400 for my g1 and I don't want it stolen.

I know there are a number of different programs that can track the phones location and others can log online to a website and look at your current location. However, The GPS will need to be on and the program would need to be running. There are a few different programs, I tested out FirePin, it worked nice, but had no need for it and the online account was free.

I'd suggest PinTail from the market. You set up a pin code on the G1. When you want to locate it, you send a text message saying "locate <pin code>". The G1 gets your GPS location and texts back the coordinates and even a map link.

Just downloaded this app and its pretty cool and works very well... just have to make sure the other half doesn't get hold of the pin code! hehe

philje123 said:
Just downloaded this app and its pretty cool and works very well... just have to make sure the other half doesn't get hold of the pin code! hehe
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Click to collapse
Also i Suggest adding That annoying LOCK screen to it... it saves wonders... Now if they only made a program you could set the default lock timeout.

not that this is a Pintail thread but I see how this could be useful but not great. If whoever has your phone has access to its menu they can change the pin which makes the application useless once your phone is gone.
just my 2 cents. If there was a way to lock out changing the pin, that would be useful, but on the same note it uninstalling this app should also require some sort of pw/pin

Could be pretty useful too if you loose the phone (Not actually theft)... Eg, I once left my mobile out at college and didn't realise... Sure it may not be accurate enough to know the exact room but it'd have stopped me spending so long searching around the house!

gps tracker on the andriod market works great and is the best

agrees gps tracker worked nice for me ... however there is no way to trigger the gps and initialize the tracking. i have my POWER MANAGER Set that way when my phone turns on, it gets plugged in or unplugged it turns on gps and cell location.
so depending on how prone u might b to loosing ur phone this is the best i would think. unless someone was familiar with android ... otherwise this method would have plenty of time to get coordinates

Is there a way to remotely turn GPS on? Like the "Force Ring" app changes ring volume to high when the phone is texted with a pin. Would be a nice app if you could remotely turn the lock screen on and turn GPS on by way of text. Anyone know if thats possible?
aad4321 said:
if the g1 had a built in battery with the screen lock enabled this could allow the owner of the phone to have time to track the phone. as soon as that phone is off and sim is removed, its gone...
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Built in battery would be a must

Is this normal?

I assume it is since it happens for my X10 as well as my girlfriends.
1) While texting it seems to freeze and have a constant vibration, then if your fingers kept texting it would eventually type all those keys or the last key multiple times.
2) Run out of memory. I use ATK and I notice after a day it starts off at something around 136mb of free memory then later in the day it will say "7 apps killed, 119mb remaining" and it has gone down to the 80's before. Where is this memory being used?
3) I seem to pocket dial/text a lot even though I lock the screen every time...
4) When on the phone it hangs up a lot from my cheek lol Is there a way to fix this other than bringing up the dialpad and hearing the keys being hit
Also might as well put this here. Is 'rooting' your phone the same as jailbreaking an iPhone?

C3LL0PHANE said:
2) Run out of memory. I use ATK and I notice after a day it starts off at something around 136mb of free memory then later in the day it will say "7 apps killed, 119mb remaining" and it has gone down to the 80's before. Where is this memory being used?
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Click to collapse
Basic stuff for an android phone. High memory usage is nothing to worry about, it's actually almost the opposite, more the merrier.

Hmm I think I've experienced most of those things. They're odd occurances. But be glad they're software issues, because software can be changed/fixed!
As for rooting vs jailbreaking an iphone... the thing is, since iPhone is locked down so much, jailbreaking an iPhone can make a big difference than a stock iPhone. Rooted android allows access to hidden system files, so can allow for more tweaking, but an unrooted Android phone already does so much, as opposed to an unjailbroken iPhone. Rooted android can by far do way more than a jailbroken iPhone. And even in some ways, an unrooted Android phone can do more than a jailbroken iPhone as well.
PS: can you share the numbers of some of you girlfriends? maybe I can help them out with their technical issues

C3LL0PHANE said:
I assume it is since it happens for my X10 as well as my girlfriends.
1) While texting it seems to freeze and have a constant vibration, then if your fingers kept texting it would eventually type all those keys or the last key multiple times.
2) Run out of memory. I use ATK and I notice after a day it starts off at something around 136mb of free memory then later in the day it will say "7 apps killed, 119mb remaining" and it has gone down to the 80's before. Where is this memory being used?
3) I seem to pocket dial/text a lot even though I lock the screen every time...
4) When on the phone it hangs up a lot from my cheek lol Is there a way to fix this other than bringing up the dialpad and hearing the keys being hit
Also might as well put this here. Is 'rooting' your phone the same as jailbreaking an iPhone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1) I've noticed this. The pattern I notice is that this only happens when you're receiving text and typing. Since in the options for the keyboard you can enable vibration when u type I believe this is the problem. I haven't tested it but the way the phone seems to respond, it seems to be so. It seems to be able to only output one vibration feedback at a time. So in effect it delays those linked to your typing until the vibration for receiving text has ended. I could be wrong though.
2) It is most probably being used by background running processes. Typically you only really close a process by pushing the back button until it closes. If you continually open new tasks after pushing the center button you're essentially putting the current program in the background.
3)What you can do is enable a simple swipe pattern lock to help this, but even so you run the risk of locking your phone if you "guess" the pattern lock too many times. So I would recommend you buying a case for it if you don't have one. I have not had any problem like this and I use a case.
4)It sounds like your proximity sensor isn't working or isn't being properly activated by your cheek. What you can do is go to a mirror and call someone, while speaking to them shift the phone a little bit at a time until you see the screen black. This indicates the proximity sensor has detected your face being close to the phone. While you are at it you can also slide the phone a bit to get peak volume with your phone. From what I can see the in-call speaker is very directional.
EDIT: Yea you can consider rooting to be the android equivalent to jail breaking. Considering you're asking that I am guessing you have not rooted your phone yet. If you don't have the latest firmware it might be a good idea since it fixes some little oddities on the x10 as well as offering battery and speed improvements.

There's an easier way to test the proximity sensor:
While in lockscreen, press: Menu Back Back Menu Back Menu Menu Back
This opens the service menu. Go to Service Tests-Proximity Switch.
Now just move a finger over the sensor to test. It also gives you a sound so you can also try holding it to your cheek!
Hope that helps!

@beno1 cooooolll thanks man.
Sent from my X10a using XDA App

So I went into the testing part and checked the proximity switch and it says it is off. That's not what I want now is it? I couldn't figure out how to get it on.
As for pressing the Home button instead of Back.. wouldn't Advanced Task Killer close those applications anyways?

Put your finger over the proximity sensor and it will go from off to on.. then take it off and it will be off..

Tri3Dent said:
Put your finger over the proximity sensor and it will go from off to on.. then take it off and it will be off..
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Click to collapse
I tried that and it beeps, but goes back to off

C3LL0PHANE said:
I tried that and it beeps, but goes back to off
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Click to collapse
That's what it should do! It will only go to on when it is covered then as soon as you uncover it then it swiches back to off.
This is as it should be in the service test. It is working.

[Q] Privacy issues on hd mini

I noticed that when I boot up my mini and I don't insert my code, I can still use my phone. As in browsing through my emails, sms, foto's, files, etc.
The code's only function seems to be making the connection with a network.
Is this a flaw on htc's side or is something not right with my phone?

PIN protects only your phone line.

You could enable the device lock, I believe setting a time out of 0 minutes forces you to input your chosen password when you turn the phone on. This means you'll then have two passwords/PINs to enter each time you soft reset (assuming you keep your SIM's PIN enabled), but if you're concerned about privacy, it is an idea. You may also want to consider encrypting your microSD card.
Excuse me butting in to a non-familiar sub-forum, I was attempting to find the wiki page for this device, attempting to help someone buy their first smartphone.

yeah i tried that, but then it asks you for a code everytime you unlock our device as well and that becomes a pain very quickly
It's not that this bothers me that much, I just think it's strange the phone's protection is this weak

If it didn't ask you to enter the PIN when you unlock your device or use ActiveSync/Windows Mobile Device Centre, then your data would be at risk if the phone was stolen whilst it was turned on. I see where you're coming from (I've stopped using device lock for this very reason), however all the HTC devices I've owned have behaved this way, possible it is a Windows Mobile behaviour?

SilentlyScreaming said:
If it didn't ask you to enter the PIN when you unlock your device or use ActiveSync/Windows Mobile Device Centre, then your data would be at risk if the phone was stolen whilst it was turned on. I see where you're coming from (I've stopped using device lock for this very reason), however all the HTC devices I've owned have behaved this way, possible it is a Windows Mobile behaviour?
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Click to collapse
Not a WinMo problem. This is specifically an HTC problem.
The WinMo locking feature is supposed to be able to set time criteria. For example, set it to 4 hours. When you boot up your phone, it goes to ask the password once. Then it won't be asking it anymore until you reboot your phone again, or until you didn't move your phone for straight 4 hours. You can set different number of hours for this effect.
All my other WinMo phones from 5.0 to 6.x does this thing perfectly. Only my first HTC unit, this HD mini, won't allow this simple feature to work correctly as intended. HTC somehow tweaked this basic WinMo feature, and broke it. So now, if you enable the lock feature, it ask for password each time you come out of standby, no matter what situation, no matter how long or short your phone was on standby. Very annoying. Making it useless.

bart3385 said:
Not a WinMo problem. This is specifically an HTC problem.
The WinMo locking feature is supposed to be able to set time criteria. For example, set it to 4 hours. When you boot up your phone, it goes to ask the password once. Then it won't be asking it anymore until you reboot your phone again, or until you didn't move your phone for straight 4 hours. You can set different number of hours for this effect.
All my other WinMo phones from 5.0 to 6.x does this thing perfectly. Only my first HTC unit, this HD mini, won't allow this simple feature to work correctly as intended. HTC somehow tweaked this basic WinMo feature, and broke it. So now, if you enable the lock feature, it ask for password each time you come out of standby, no matter what situation, no matter how long or short your phone was on standby. Very annoying. Making it useless.
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Click to collapse
Yeah sometimes you wonder how did they screw it up so much ?
I really think its better to build a Rom from scratch, I also miss the normal functioning windows start menu. They crippled so much... its almost pathetic...

HTC screwed up many of those simple and beautiful stock WinMo apps, features, and configurations. Not just this one.
I don't really get why they did this. Maybe to discourage you from using stock WinMo apps? Or maybe they're just plain dumb dumb and dumber?

Ah, now I understand the problem. Have you tried other locked apps? CHT's version / S2U2 etc. ?

I don't know exactly what you mean by using other apps, but if your question is if I can use apps or shells without entering my PIN my answer is yes.
If you were aiming at the unlock code popping up everytime I put my phone on standby, it's a hardware button so apps don't affect it I guess
MobileMini said:
Yeah sometimes you wonder how did they screw it up so much ?
I really think its better to build a Rom from scratch, I also miss the normal functioning windows start menu. They crippled so much... its almost pathetic...
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Click to collapse
you can still use the normal windows start menu, just disable sense in the settings
it makes your phone a hell of a lot faster and although it's not that spectacular to look at, it's much more functional than sense
i've been using spb mobile shell since a few weeks after i bought my mini and it's made my phone a lot nicer to use.

Wifi on Windows Phone 8

Wifi used to turn off under standby on Windows Phone 7, which was the most stupidest feature in the whole OS I don't care what anyone says. Can anyone confirm if this is still present in WP8?

Since nobody got their hands on a device that's not even out yet, we can't answer that.

How can anyone confirm such a statement when the os isn't even out yet? (and some features may be still on the work, since the sdk isn't the final version yet?)

ammarmalik said:
Wifi used to turn off under standby on Windows Phone 7, which was the most stupidest feature in the whole OS I don't care what anyone says. Can anyone confirm if this is still present in WP8?
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Click to collapse
There is/are an app(s) for that!
Even if it is still present in WP8, you can always have an app to help you add this feature (like other OS always does!)

Hi,
It would be really great if you could let me know the name of any of the apps which helps in keeping the wifi on all the time.
I am not having a rooted handset so I cannot change the registry entries and would only be able to get an app which is already in the marketplace

shamreez said:
Hi,
It would be really great if you could let me know the name of any of the apps which helps in keeping the wifi on all the time.
I am not having a rooted handset so I cannot change the registry entries and would only be able to get an app which is already in the marketplace
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its called keep alive
it has a logo of a heart
look it up in the market place

FWIW, even though the Wifi is switched off when the screen is off, I believe the OS does switch on & off the wifi as and when it needs to (checking emails, receiving push notifications etc) without fully waking the phone (ie the display stays off)
I run an app that polls a local server every few hours to check for new items. The local IP 192.168.1.65, as it appears on the local network, is the IP it checks. Every morning when I check my phone, the live tile has been updated overnight. It can't have made contact with the server unless it was connecting via Wifi, so therefore the Wifi is indeed being used even when the screen is off.
Therefore, I have no use for Keepalive or any of these apps. I'm not sure why people need it?

There were some recent news which mentioned that Live apps (Don't ask) will most likely remain active, even with the screen locked.
Also, seems that enabling your app as a GPS app will most likely let your app. However, these are discussions and rumors.

Wifi does not get completely shut down when you lock the screen. It simply enters a power-saving mode, cause you won't actively need your connection while phone is locked.
You can check this in easy steps. Get an app that updates itself over internet everytime you run it (say a whether app) and lock the screen at the exact moment when the app goes past the loading screen. You if you press the power button, you will see wifi is active in the status bar.
If you lock it the usual way, while nobody needs wifi, you will see wifi gets turned off almost instantly.

What if you are downloading bunch of podcasts ? Will the podcast app keep the wi-fi on until it finishes ? Also.. skype (or any other chat program) needs to check for updates as well.
I am sure they've made it seamless..

Random apps will think I have no network connection, when I obviously do... help!

Hey guys,
This problem has been going on for a week or two now. Phone worked great when I first got it, but something must have changed (newest Verizon update, perhaps?)
Let me preface this by saying I've seen this happen both on Wi-fi and 4G. When on Wi-fi, and it happens, I've tried turning Wi-fi off and still get the same errors.
The apps affected seem to be random. A couple days ago it was Google Maps, I was getting the "offline navigation" prompt. Today it was Chase (couldn't screenshot it), TeamViewer, IMDb and so on.
Here are some screenshots. Note the time in the pictures.
- First encountered the problem when opening TeamViewer.
- Did a Speedtest to confirm that yes, I'm really on 4G as the phone shows, and it's quite a stable and fast connection too.
- Let's try some more apps. Here's Target's Cartwheel
- Delta app? Same problem.
- TeamViewer Host app. Same problem as the client.
- IMDb. One more random one not working.
- Lastly, I went back to Pokémon Go to confirm I DO still have network connectivity (not sure why the screenshot got ghosted like that, but you can see I just redeemed items from a Pokéstop I was near with no errors)
So as you can see, the phone itself, as well as certain apps, work fine. But others don't. I tried turning airplane mode on and back off, disabling/enabling mobile networks, nothing works. The only thing I can do is reboot the phone.
Any ideas? This gets incredibly annoying as I can't seem to go a whole day without *some* app whining that it has no network access. Some apps work flawlessly every time (like the aforementioned Pokémon Go) but others don't.
By the way, that little screenshot button in the bottom left is from this neat app called Custom Navigation Bar. I'm pretty sure that has nothing to do with this problem, though, all it does is add buttons.

drfsupercenter said:
Hey guys,
This problem has been going on for a week or two now. Phone worked great when I first got it, but something must have changed (newest Verizon update, perhaps?)
Let me preface this by saying I've seen this happen both on Wi-fi and 4G. When on Wi-fi, and it happens, I've tried turning Wi-fi off and still get the same errors.
The apps affected seem to be random. A couple days ago it was Google Maps, I was getting the "offline navigation" prompt. Today it was Chase (couldn't screenshot it), TeamViewer, IMDb and so on.
Here are some screenshots. Note the time in the pictures.
- First encountered the problem when opening TeamViewer.
- Did a Speedtest to confirm that yes, I'm really on 4G as the phone shows, and it's quite a stable and fast connection too.
- Let's try some more apps. Here's Target's Cartwheel
- Delta app? Same problem.
- TeamViewer Host app. Same problem as the client.
- IMDb. One more random one not working.
- Lastly, I went back to Pokémon Go to confirm I DO still have network connectivity (not sure why the screenshot got ghosted like that, but you can see I just redeemed items from a Pokéstop I was near with no errors)
So as you can see, the phone itself, as well as certain apps, work fine. But others don't. I tried turning airplane mode on and back off, disabling/enabling mobile networks, nothing works. The only thing I can do is reboot the phone.
Any ideas? This gets incredibly annoying as I can't seem to go a whole day without *some* app whining that it has no network access. Some apps work flawlessly every time (like the aforementioned Pokémon Go) but others don't.
By the way, that little screenshot button in the bottom left is from this neat app called Custom Navigation Bar. I'm pretty sure that has nothing to do with this problem, though, all it does is add buttons.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you have powersave mode on? I've had some problems with it enabled..

No I don't have power save mode on. Should I turn off the power monitoring of apps as well? Didn't think that mattered as long as power save mode was off.

drfsupercenter said:
No I don't have power save mode on. Should I turn off the power monitoring of apps as well? Didn't think that mattered as long as power save mode was off.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You could try. I dont know, what i Said about powersave profile in battery settings Was My bet.
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I turned all the power saving stuff off and still have this happening. As in, I set it to not even monitor how much power each app is using.