Android Helper

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Recover A Lost or Stolen Android:level 2

12:00 AM | Posted by Unknown

Smart phones are expensive, so it’s a really big deal when yours is lost or stolen. If you have an Android phone, however, there are some great, free applications available to help you find a lost android phone.

Missing Phone Level 2:

This method should be used if you’ve left your phone in a public area, or somewhere out of earshot. This is especially useful if you left your phone at a bar, restaurant, taxi, or at a friend’s place – somewhere that a person might be holding it for you to pick up.

This method can also be used if your phone has been stolen (or if someone accidentally took it), but be sure to read the disclaimer below.

Note: If your phone has been knowingly stolen, it is in your best interest to report it to the proper legal authorities. This guide may still be able to assist them (or you) in recovering the phone – but do not attempt to recover the phone if an malicious party has stolen it. Don’t be a hero, phones can be replaced!

With the Mobile Defense application , you can remotely track your phone using its GPS from any browser. You can also perform advanced features like remotely lock, back up, or completely wipe your phone to protect your privacy.

Step 1: Download and install the free Mobile Defense application from the Android Market. You can also download this app by scanning the barcode to the right with the Barcode Scanner app.

You will need to complete a brief registration process after installing Mobile Defense to activate it. Once Mobile Defense has been installed, it will run silently in the background so nobody will ever know it is installed.

Step 2: In the event that you lose your phone, head to the Mobile Defense online dashboard and log in with your account. Click the Map tab to open the remote controls.

On the right side of the screen, you will see any phones you have registered with Mobile Defense. Click Connect to Phone to activate the Mobile Defense software.

When a connection has been established, you will see your phone’s location embedded in a Google Map. With this menu, you can view details about your phone and issue commands. Since this is based off of Google Maps, you can view traditional maps, satellite imagery, or a hybrid of the two.

The Details menu contains everything you need to know about your phone’s location, including latitude, longitude, and speed. You can also monitor the phone’s connection status and battery level.

Going back to the main Mobile Defense map, you can click the Alert button to send a message to the phone. If you enable the Sound option, your phone will play an incredibly loud car alarm which will definitely get the attention of whoever has it. The Sound feature could also be useful if you’re physically near the phone but in a large crowd.

The Require Pin feature keeps your message on the screen until a special code is entered.

Special Thanks:Makeuseof web:Evan Wondrasek

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Recover A Lost or Stolen Android : Level 1

12:00 AM | Posted by Unknown

Missing Phone Level 1:

With the Where’s My Droid application, you can easily find your phone (even if it’s on vibrate or silent mode) by texting it a special code. When your phone receives the code, it will play an alert at maximum volume until you discover the missing phone.

Where’s My Droid also has the ability to reply to you with your phone’s GPS location and a link to it on Google Maps.

Step 1: Download and install the free Where’s My Droid application from the Android Market. You can also download this app by scanning the barcode on the right with the Barcode Scanner app.

Step 2: You’ll want to change the default “secret message” that activates your phone’s alarm, since anybody could trigger it if they knew the default setting.

Open Where’s My Droid in the app drawer and change both the Attention word and Attention word GPS. You can also change how long the alert plays when triggered in this menu.

Be sure to note that for the GPS feature to work, you must have GPS enabled on the phone.

Step 3: When you can’t find your phone, simply send a text message to your phone from another phone with the secret message you set in Step 2. Your phone will immediately play an alert at maximum volume so you can easily find your lost Android phone.

Monday, February 11, 2013

Free Backgrounds For Your Mobile Phone:2

12:00 AM | Posted by Unknown

If you’re the kind of person who quickly gets bored with the image they are using as a background or wallpaper for their phone, having a wide selection of images to choose from is essential. Regardless of the kind of phone that you own, there are a wide variety of websites to choose from with feature images that have been cropped and resized to fit your phone’s screen.This is the part 2...

BlackBerry Tune

Blackberry Tune is another great resource for Blackberry wallpapers. Select your phone model, and then choose from up to 12 categories – which varies from model to model. You can then download the image to your computer, to transfer to your phone.

Motorola Droid Wallpapers

From the makers of Sciphone comes the free Motorola Droid repository containing over 20 categories and almost 500 images, including Textures, Technology and Games. It also displays the most recently viewed images, and the site also allows you to search for the image of your choice.

As with Sciphone, it should be mentioned that not all images are safe for work.

G1 Wallpapers

Again from the makers of Sciphone comes the free G1 repository, containing the same categories, but this time, the images are cropped and resized to fit the G1′s screen. The website also displays the most recently viewed images, and allows you to search for the image of your choice.

G1 Wallpapers has almost 1000 images to choose from, and is updated on a regular basis. As with Sciphone, it should be mentioned that not all images are safe for work.

Zedge

Zedge has a convenient cell phone wallpaper maker for just about any model phone you’ve ever thought of, in 4 easy steps. Choose from a limited selection of backgrounds or a solid colour, choose a font, and write in the exact text you want to appear on your wallpaper.

You can then save the image, or visit Zedge’s mobile site from your phone and enter the zCode specified for that image. Using the cell phone wallpaper maker requires you to sign up for a free account.

Zedge also features a huge selection of images that can be used as wallpapers.

Flickr

Flickr is a great resource for cell phone backgrounds, simply by browsing through various groups. The Flickr Group, iPhone Wallpapers is made up of over 5,000 members, and features over 18,000 images from a wide variety of art, photography and design.

The group is, of course, searchable, but unfortunately because of the fact that it is not moderated, some of the images are not correctly sized. That said, the unlimited choices available make it a great wallpaper resource.

The G1 wallpaper group on Flickr, 640×480, is a little bit more modest than the iPhone group, but nonetheless, it features a great variety of photography, art and design, tailored to fit the G1′s screen.

The Motorola Droid is another phone with it’s own dedicated group on Flickr, Motorola Droid Wallpapers and Backgrounds, for adding images tailored to fit the Droid’s screen. The group features over 300 images, including an interesting variety of photography and design images.

And of course there is always the method of using your favourite search engine, whether Google, Bing, or any other site of your choice, and performing an image search for wallpapers for the cell phone of your choice.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Free Backgrounds For Your Mobile Phone:1

12:30 AM | Posted by Unknown

If you’re the kind of person who quickly gets bored with the image they are using as a background or wallpaper for their phone, having a wide selection of images to choose from is essential. Regardless of the kind of phone that you own, there are a wide variety of websites to choose from with feature images that have been cropped and resized to fit your phone’s screen.

iDesign iPhone

iDesign has over 10,000 images that can be used as iPhone wallpapers, and is updated daily. Choose from over 40 categories including Abstract, Closeups, Fashion and Text. You can search for specific images, and comment on the images available.

You can save the wallpapers on your computer and transfer them when your sync your iPhone, or simply visit the site from your phone to save them.

Poolga

Poolga features an incredibly high quality collection of iPhone wallpapers submitted by professional artists and designers. While the site is not searchable, and there are no categories, scrolling through the available wallpapers is still incredibly enjoyable.

You can save the wallpapers on your computer and transfer them when your sync your iPhone, or simply visit the site from your phone to save them.

Sciphone

Sciphone has an extensive list of categories to choose from, and is constantly being updated. Like any large wallpaper repository, it’s to be expected to find a ton of pictures of scantily clad women, but their other categories feature a wide variety of photographs, digital art and design.

What makes the site worth visiting is its mobile optimisation for the iPhone, making it easier than ever to save the image directly from your iPhone. It should of course be mentioned that not all Sciphone images are safe for work.

Deserving of a special mention is definitely the aptly named site, iPhone Themes, which contains a wide variety of art, design and photography in over 20 categories. Hovering over any given wallpaper image will show you what that image would look like displayed on your iPhone.

Crackberry

Crackberry has the most comprehensive set of searchable Blackberry backgrounds, and takes into account the fact that not every Blackberry screen is the same. The site contains over 20 categories, with thousands of images to choose from. They also feature lists of the most downloaded, the highest rated and most recently added wallpapers.

BBSnap

BBSnap harnesses the power of Flickr allowing you to search for images, and then resize and crop the image to create a customised wallpaper. You can also browse through the wallpapers that have been created by other users in over 10 categories. You can also upload any image of your choice and convert it into a background for your Blackberry.

After selecting your image, choose the model of your phone, and the site will allow you to crop the image to fit your phone.

You can then download it, and if you so choose, submit it to be shared with other users on the site. BBSnap also provides you with a URL to visit from your Blackberry if you would prefer to save the image directly to your phone.

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Erase Data From Your Stolen Phone

2:00 AM | Posted by Unknown

Have you ever had your phone lost or stolen? Well, what do you do after you are finished panicking? You start to think about everything that you lost — what someone could do with the data you have on your device and wonder where it could be.

Up until now, all of the apps that allowed you to remotely track your device or even remotely erase all the data on it cost money

Now I found a free application called Lookout that allows you to backup your data, track your phone, make your phone remotely “Scream” or even erase all the data on it. Lookout works with Windows Mobile, Android and Blackberry mobile phones. As an added bonus, they throw in a anti-malware application, anti-virus application and a backup (remote) utility on your mobile device to keep it nice and secure.

To start, you need to download the application to your mobile device. Start here.

Click on the big yellow button that says ‘Free Download’. That will take you to a page where they will ask you what country you are in in addition to your mobile phone number.

You can also just visit m.mylookout.com on your device. This is what the text message looks like. As you can see, it is just a link to http://mylookout.com/m.

When you arrive at the mobile page for myLookout, you will see a list of operating systems. You may have to scroll down the page to find it.

Then when you’ve located your operating system, click on the link to download the myLookout application. You can see the example below shows the Windows Mobile download link:

Then when you are asked where to install the application, I recomend using the internal or device storage for optimal performance. If you have a fast MicroSD card then you can install it to the storage card. I opted to install it to my device. It will use a little more than 1MB of storage space.

Once the application is installed on your mobile device, you will see a warning telling you to make sure that you have an unlimited network data connection. Remember going over your allotted plan can be very expensive so tread with caution.

Your device will then need to be restarted. When it comes back up, you will be prompted to create a new myLookout username and password or you can use an existing account if you have one.

After logging in, you can choose which components to enable. Your options are Anti-Virus, Firewall and Data Backup. I chose all three.

If you choose to include data backup, you will see a sub-menu after you hit OK, asking you which components to backup. They include:

Contacts
Pictures
Documents
Call History
SMS Messages
Audio
Video

When you are done, all your functions will be enabled and you should see a screen like this:

Now we are ready to use the website to track down my device. Let’s see how it works. Log in using the same username and password you set up earlier.

You can view anti-virus activity, data backup files and the most interesting component is the missing device: find my phone link.

After clicking on it you can locate your device on a map, make it emit a LOUD scream or delete all the data on the device. You are allowed to back it up again remotely before wiping it as well.

Let’s see how well the locate command works. Below, you can see I hit the locate button on the upper left hand side of the interface.

In about 2 minutes, it located me almost precisely on a map inside a building 14 stories up.

Visit Orginal Article:

Erase Data From Your Stolen Phone

1:59 AM | Posted by Unknown