Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich has a smart feature integrated that allows you to take full backup of your device and then restore the backup when required using Android SDK tools. Wug’s Galaxy Nexus Root Toolkit for Samsung Galaxy Nexus makes this task way easier and surprisingly you don’t need to root or unlock bootloader to perform a backup. Also, this toolkit doesn’t requires to have Android SDK installed when on Windows.

Note: This Does NOT backup all of your SD card data such as pictures, music, files, etc. So, it’s your recommended to manually copy the entire SD card contents to your computer. You can move them back to SD card later incase a factory reset is performed. The SMS messages and the call logs will be wiped as well. So take care!

Guide – Backup All Installed Apps and Apps Data on Galaxy Nexus

1. Download Galaxy Nexus Root Toolkit and install it on your Windows system.

2. Important - Configure Drivers for your device using the toolkit. Refer to this detailed tutorial and make sure the drivers are setup properly before proceeding ahead.

3. Next, enabled USB Debugging on your device and connect it to computer via USB. Then open the toolkit (Run as Administrator).

4. Open the toolkit. Ensure your device is connected by selecting ‘adb-phone on’ and clicking the ‘List devices’ option. (Refer tutorial)

5. Click on the ‘Backup Apps + Data’ listed under Backup and Restore in the toolkit.

- Specify the location on your computer to save the backup file (.ab).

- A cmd windows will open up. Confirm if you see the adb device listed there.

- Then another command prompt window will open asking if you’d like to include system apps and apps data in your backup.

>> It’s recommended to choose No, which will result in backup of all user installed apps along with their data. This option is preferred as you can restore the backup after installing the latest firmware (when updated manually) or after flashing a custom ROM.

6. A new cmd window will now appear asking if you’re ready to initiate the backup?

- Hold your device in hand and make sure the screen is awake.

7. As you confirm, a Backup screen will appear on your phone.

- You’ll be prompted to enter a password on your device to protect the backup file. (Make sure to remember the set password as it is required to restore the backup file.)

- The backup process will start automatically, you can notice the activity on phone.

- Once the backup is complete it will be stored on your computer in the specified directory. Similarly, you can Restore it anytime using Galaxy Nexus Root Toolkit. Upon restoration, all apps and their data such as password and settings would be restored.

~ We tried this procedure on Galaxy Nexus running Android 4.0.2 and it worked like a charm. The restore process went flawless and all the user apps were intact with data.

Hope you found this guide useful.

Related Posts:

• Guide to Unlock Samsung Galaxy Nexus Bootloader
• Guide to Update Samsung Galaxy Nexus (YAKJUXW) to Android 4.0.4 and Get future Updates from Google
• Installing ADB & Fastboot Drivers for Galaxy Nexus using Galaxy Nexus Root Toolkit
• How to Install CyanogenMod 7.1 on Samsung Galaxy S II
• How to Backup Contacts & SMS of Android phone to PC via Wi-Fi or USB cable [Tutorial]

CopyTrans, one of our dear sponsor and the producer of best iTunes alternative for iOS devices has now introduced a major and much anticipated new feature “Apps support” to their free iTunes alternative ‘CopyTrans Manager’. This brand new amazing feature lets you simply transfer apps from PC to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch without requiring iTunes. Best thing is NO Jailbreak is needed to accomplish such complex task.

CopyTrans Manager is a free, light and efficient alternative to iTunes that offers the ability to quickly transfer data such as music, videos, podcasts and applications to your iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and lets you manage them. It doesn’t requires any installation, offers drag & drop support, and instantly Syncs the transferred stuff to iOS device. With the new version, you can add/sync Apps (.ipa files) to any iPhone by simple drag and drop without iTunes and jailbreak.

Features:

• Add songs, apps, videos, etc. from any PC to iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone
• Create and delete playlists or edit existing ones
• Drag & Drop songs directly into playlists
• Edit track information (artist, album, ratings, genre, etc.)
• Add missing album artwork automatically
• Browse by album, artist or any other tag
• Play songs and videos on any PC

Transferring Apps to iPhone – If you don’t prefer using iTunes to install apps on iPhone, then do it easily using CopyTrans Manager. To do so, just download the apps from App Store via iTunes. Then navigate to the directory “C:\Users\User\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media\Mobile Applications” on your Windows PC to access the downloaded apps. Next, connect your iPhone to PC, run CopyTrans Manager and drag the app’s IPA file to Applications in CopyTrans. Hit the ‘Save changes’ button and you are done.

Compatibility: All iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad models, all iOS versions – Windows only

Download CopyTrans Manager Free

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MP4 is one of the most common and popular video format supported by a vast majority of portable devices such as smartphones, Android phones, iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, PSP, etc. FLV is another widely popular video format and also the default container for YouTube videos but barely any Android device supports playing FLV video. Though, one can always convert a FLV video to MP4 using some video converter program but that isn’t something most would like to do. Luckily, we found some free apps for Android that lets you play Flash Video FLV, MKV and AVI files without the need to root and they work even if your device doesn’t supports Adobe Flash Player.

RockPlayer for Android is a great and efficient media player, that takes advantage of device hardware decoder and FFmpeg plugin, to support almost every file format and most codecs. The app can smoothly play media downloaded from the web, such as videos and movies – supports .AVI, .FLV, .MP4 and .MKV formats. The playback quality is pretty good, has options to fast forward and view file information in a click. It even loads the subtitle (.srt) file automatically and lets you customize the size and color of subtitle text. To use it, just put the video on your sdcard and power up RockPlayer. Then just navigate to the media folder on external storage and play the desired file.

It has 2 decoding modes – Hardware decoding mode and Software decoding mode. Cons: Some low end Android devices with slow processor might not be able to handle big size and officially unsupported videos via Hardware mode, so try using the software mode (if Hardware doesn’t works). You might also see the video lagging behind the audio, thus not syncing properly because of deficient hardware. The lite version of RockPlayer is free without any ads but a distracting R appears over the video.

Download RockPlayer Lite

MoboPlayer is another free and smart player for Android that has no watermark and less limitations as compared to RockPlayer. The app has a cool user interface and supports various popular video and subtitle formats. It scans and displays an entire list of your videos along with their thumbnails. The playback is smooth and of high quality, plus it offers impressive touch gesture options to control the screen brightness, audio and fast forward a particular video while playing. You may experience a video lag when playing FLV or MKV files, depends mainly on device hardware. Note: After installing it, you need to install the MoboPlayer Codec from Android market when asked.

Download MoboPlayer

Moai FLV Player is simple and free FLV Player that can play .flv videos located on SD card of your phone. Just one downside, that it requires Adobe AIR 2.7 that might be incompatible with some Android devices.

Download Moai FLV Player

Do try out the above free media players and stick to the best one if any.

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Google just announced that Google+ is now available for users of Google Apps. Google+ will automatically become available in next few days to all customers who use Google Apps for Business or the free version of Google Apps and have chosen to automatically enable new services. But the impatient ones can simply enable it manually now!

Google Apps users will have access to the same set of features that are available to every Google+ user, and more. In addition to sharing publicly or with your circles, you’ll also have the option to share with everyone in your organization, even if you haven’t added all of those people to a circle.

Starting today, you can manually enable Google Plus service for your organization hosted on Google Apps. You can enable Google+ for all or just specific users at any time, if it is not enabled automatically. To Turn on Google+ for your Google Apps account -

1. Log in to your Google Apps administrator control panel.

The URL is https://www.google.com/a/cpanel/primary-domain-name, where primary-domain-name is the domain name you used to sign up for Google Apps.

2. Click Organization & users.

3. From the left pane, choose the organization (select any specific user if you want) for which you want to enable Google+. Then click Services.

4. Make sure that the following services Google Talk and Picasa Web Albums, are turned on for the selected organizational unit.

5. Under Additional Services, scroll down until you see the Google+ service. Turn on Google+ by tapping the ON option button.

6. A pop-up box will open up as shown, just select the ‘Turn Google+ on’ option.

7. Then click ‘Save changes’ option shown at the bottom left side.

Now visit plus.google.com and sign up using your Google Apps account logins. You need to join the service before you can use it.

For those of you who’ve already started using Google+ with a personal Google Account and would prefer to use your Google Apps account, we’re building a migration tool to help you move over.

Source: Google Enterprise Blog

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CyanogenMod is the best and highly popular open source Custom ROM for Android devices. CyanogenMod is designed to increase performance and reliability over Android based ROMs released by vendors and carriers. It also offers a variety of features and enhancements that are currently not found in stock versions of Android.

The Stable CyanogenMod 7.1 build has been finally released after a long delay. CM 7.1 comes with lot of new features, improvements and support for 68 devices! This build is based on Android 2.3.7. While stable CM 7.1 is available for majority of devices but still there are many devices still in beta status (Pyramid, HP Touchpad, Optimus 3D, etc.)

Official CyanogenMod support for Samsung Galaxy S II has been added in CyanogenMod 7.1. Here is our Guide to Install CM 7.1 on SGS2 (follow the below steps carefully). This tutorial can be used to install CM7 on other supported Android devices as well if your device is rooted with an appropriate tool.

Disclaimer: Please try this guide at your own risk. We will not be responsible in case you brick the device or its warranty gets void.

Before proceeding, Make a BACKUP – It’s recommended to backup entire phone data like contacts, messages, photos, etc. Use Titanium Backup to create a backup of all Applications installed on the phone (requires rooting). Also, backup everything stored on the SD card to a folder on your PC because it might be formatted too.

>> To Flash a custom ROM on your device, you first need to ROOT the Galaxy S II. Visit this thread posted at XDA-Developers forum to see how to root your SGS2.

Perquisite: 100% charged phone and download below files.

• Download CyanogenMod 7.1 (Stable Mod) for SGS2 I9100
• Download Google Apps for CM7

Installing ClockworkMod Recovery -

• Download and install “ROM Manager” app from the Android market. Now open ROM Manager, a message will appear, select OK to continue.

• Select the first option “Flash ClockworkMod Recovery”.

  

• A confirm phone model window will appear, select ‘Samsung Galaxy S II’. A pop-up will open asking for Superuser access, instantly click Allow. A dialog box will appear saying ‘Successfully Flashed ClockworkMod Recovery!’.

• Re-open ROM Manager and select “Reboot into Recovery”.

Backup Current SGS2 Gingerbread Stock ROM -

In ClockworkMod Recovery, open ‘backup and restore’ and select the ‘Backup’ option. The recovery image of current ROM will be backed up to a folder named ‘clockworkmod’ on your SD card. Then select ‘reboot system now’ to restart the phone. Next,

>> Make sure to copy the ‘clockworkmod’ folder from SD card to your computer.

>> Transfer the update-cm-7.1.0-GalaxyS2-signed.zip and ‘Google Apps zip’ file (downloaded above) to root directory of your SD card.

Reboot the Phone into Recovery Mode – Launch ROM Manager on phone and select “Reboot into Recovery”.

• In ClockworkMod Recovery, scroll down to 3rd option “wipe data/factory reset” using the volume keys and select it. Select ‘Yes — delete all user data’ to confirm.

• After the Data Wipe is completed, select “wipe cache partition” and then select ‘Yes – Wipe Cache’ to confirm.

• Then open “advanced” and select “Wipe Dalvik Cache”, confirm to proceed. Next “Wipe Battery Stats” too.

• Next select “install zip from sdcard” from the main Recovery menu. Select “choose zip from sdcard” and then choose the update-cm-7.1.0-GalaxyS2-signed.zip file to apply, select ‘Yes..’ to confirm.

• Just wait for few minutes until the installation gets completed.

• Similarly, Flash the Google Apps zip file (gapps-gb-20110828-signed.zip).

• Once the installation has finished, select +++++Go Back+++++ to get back to the main menu, and select the Reboot system now option. The Samsung Galaxy S II should now boot into CyanogenMod.

That’s it! Enjoy the all new, powerful and customizable CyanogenMod 7.1 ROM.

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• Guide to Install Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread Custom ROM on LG Optimus One [Step by Step Instructions]
• How to Install/Flash Franco Kernel on Custom ROMs
• Guide to Update Samsung Galaxy Nexus (YAKJUXW) to Android 4.0.4 and Get future Updates from Google
• How to Backup Galaxy Nexus Apps & Data without Rooting
• Extract Single Files/Apps from your Nandroid Backups with Nandroid Browser

If you’ve developed an application or a custom ROM for Android, then you first need to digitally sign the .apk or .zip files using a private key which is identified by the Android system before executing it. This is done to ensure that a certain file has not been modified and to prevent security breaches. Now if you want to flash an update.zip or APK file on Android which is unsigned, then you can simply sign the file and proceed.

For instance, if you’re creating an update.zip package in Titanium Backup to restore your entire Android phone apps by flashing the zip file. Then you must be aware that Titanium Backup creates an *unsigned* update.zip file which cant be flashed until it is signed.

ZipSigner 2 is a free and efficient app which overcomes this problem! Similar to jarsigner and signapk, this app allows you to easily sign update zip files, .APK, or JAR files directly on your Android device. You can do this by using one of the 4 built-in certificates, the keys include: media, platform, shared, testkey — or use auto-key selection modes.

This is a great app and works really well according to the user reviews. (Rating: 4.9)

Download ZipSigner 2Related Posts:

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GetJar has now started offering some top paid Android applications for Free just like Amazon Appstore but GetJar’s promotion applies to Android users in the US/UK only. GetJar Gold brings the most popular apps and games for free on a daily basis.

The popular paid titles that you can get for Free at GetJar include: Backbreaker, SwiftKey X, Age of Zombies, Hockey Nations 2010 and few other apps. Visit GetJar now via this link to download some great apps for free. However, it seems GetJar doesn’t lets you update these apps for free in future as they’ve one-time download system.

Source: GetJar Newsletter

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Launchpad is one of the most amazing feature in OS X Lion which brings a iPad like app screen view to Mac and gives you instant access to all your apps. It lists all the apps, shows their icons in a dynamic view and creates multiple pages as a room for your apps.

The Launchpad looks brilliant just like an iOS device screen and is very useful, it lets you easily access any installed apps without searching for them in an Applications folder. One can group similar category apps like games in folders by dragging one on top of another. You can easily delete apps (downloaded from Mac App Store) from your system directly from Launchpad and can change their position on Launchpad screen as well.

To open Launchpad, there is an icon on Dock but that’s not a real quick way. You can consider assigning a shortcut key to open Launchpad or best and more convenient way would be to make it as one of the Hot corners.

Setting a Keyboard Shortcut for Launchpad – Go to Apple > System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts. Select Launchpad & Dock from left side panel, tick mark the ‘Show Launchpad’ entry and you will see a box popping up to define a shortcut. Set your preferred shortcut key. (Thanks Manuel)

Setting Launchpad as a Hot Corner – Open System Preferences > Mission Control and tap on Hot Corners. Then set any one corner for Launchpad, I choose bottom left one as it is easily accessible. Now whenever you move the cursor to set corner, it will open up the Launchpad. Swipe with two fingers across your trackpad to move between pages.

Hope you found this tip helpful.

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