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Facebook uses Social Location running in the background to determine where you are located. Social Location uses GPS and is known to be a VERY heavy battery consumer.

You apparently can not turn this off in Facebook ...

... Thom
 
Yes, make it a world phone. :D
Install the Moto Drivers and RadioComm on your PC from Admin mode.

1. Ensure USB is connected as PC Tools mode (not Mass Storage)
2. In Radiocomm go to MA->CDMA1X->QSC60x5
3. After it comes up, switch to FTM Common1 tab and wait for the phone to enumerate purple.
4. On the upper right side in the NVAccess, scroll to NV item 1877 NV_RF_BC_CONFIG_I
5. Read the value from the device
6. Replace the first 8 bytes (16 digits) with: 8703E80400000200
7. Write the data to the device and powercycle.
This will enable GSM/UMTS bands. You will need to reenter Google passwords. If you need to bypass the activation screen push the four corners of the activation screen clockwise from upper left and wait for it to error out.
8. Dial *#*#info#*#* or download the Phone Info app from market
9. Select Phone information
10 Change the preferred network type to WCDMA
11 Exit and wait for signal

You can now freely switch between the VZW 4G sim and another sim by powering down, changing sim cards and doing steps 8-11 appropriately for the sim you inserted. As yet untested is what MS Exchange does when you swap telephone numbers. Some profiles do a phone wipe so be careful.

If you have problems and want to go back to stock: to disable GSM/UMTS, perform the same 7 steps, but replace the 8-byte data with: 0700000000000000 and change the network type to GSM/CDMA auto prl

Does not play very nice on ICS but works on 902/904. Sim cards that are locked to a specific phone won't work but pay as you go type cards should work. Confirmed on many foreign/international cards, Straight Talk and some T mobile cards. T mobile's 3G/4G bands are not on a compatible band with the Qualcomm/Vzw Gobi chip so only 2G Edge is available on USA T-mobile. If you are rooted you can flash a NVM file from Bionicbootstrap instead of steps 1-7.
 
Thom Little said:
Facebook uses Social Location running in the background to determine where you are located. Social Location uses GPS and is known to be a VERY heavy battery consumer.

You can turn this off in Facebook ...

Go to Menu | Settings | Messenger location services and un-check Location is on.

Thanks to gjlamb for this tip.
Click to expand...

I believe that this is in reference to the official Facebook Android app in the Play Store, rather than the Facebook syncing account in settings->accounts.

I will say that I turned off this setting, but it doesn't prevent Facebook from getting location when the app is brought to the foreground. Whenever you start the app, you will definitely see the location status icon flashing in the status bar at the top of the phone, and there does not seem to be a way to turn this off. I wish that there was.
 
doogald said:
I turned off this setting, but it doesn't prevent Facebook from getting location when the app is brought to the foreground. Whenever you start the app, you will definitely see the location status icon flashing in the status bar at the top of the phone, and there does not seem to be a way to turn this off. I wish that there was.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the clarifications. I removed the incorrect information.


You can disable it if root-ed. For us un-root-ed people there is another solution ... Never Start Facebook.

... Thom
 
Use facebook through the browser. Create a shortcut on the homescreen and deny it location when the browser asks.
 
There are two options for navigating theads in these forums ...

9Ekwi.png


... the one one on the left (red) takes you to the First New Post (the first message you have not read) ... the one on the right (blue) takes you to the Last Post (the las message added to the thread).

I kept missing the fact that the one on the left existed. Thanks to Unforgiven and Xyro for this great observation.

... Thom
 
There is a problem sometimes with the Gallery app where it will show the pictures on the SD card but not the SD-Ext card (or visa versa).

The solution is to power off the Bionic and power it back on again. Gallery magically heals itself.

Thanks to ... damewolf13 ... for reporting this.

... Thom
 
Lars said:
Yes, make it a world phone. :D
Install the Moto Drivers and RadioComm on your PC from Admin mode.

1. Ensure USB is connected as PC Tools mode (not Mass Storage)
2. In Radiocomm go to MA->CDMA1X->QSC60x5
3. After it comes up, switch to FTM Common1 tab and wait for the phone to enumerate purple.
4. On the upper right side in the NVAccess, scroll to NV item 1877 NV_RF_BC_CONFIG_I
5. Read the value from the device
6. Replace the first 8 bytes (16 digits) with: 8703E80400000200
7. Write the data to the device and powercycle.
This will enable GSM/UMTS bands. You will need to reenter Google passwords. If you need to bypass the activation screen push the four corners of the activation screen clockwise from upper left and wait for it to error out.
8. Dial *#*#info#*#* or download the Phone Info app from market
9. Select Phone information
10 Change the preferred network type to WCDMA
11 Exit and wait for signal

You can now freely switch between the VZW 4G sim and another sim by powering down, changing sim cards and doing steps 8-11 appropriately for the sim you inserted. As yet untested is what MS Exchange does when you swap telephone numbers. Some profiles do a phone wipe so be careful.

If you have problems and want to go back to stock: to disable GSM/UMTS, perform the same 7 steps, but replace the 8-byte data with: 0700000000000000 and change the network type to GSM/CDMA auto prl

Does not play very nice on ICS but works on 902/904. Sim cards that are locked to a specific phone won't work but pay as you go type cards should work. Confirmed on many foreign/international cards, Straight Talk and some T mobile cards. T mobile's 3G/4G bands are not on a compatible band with the Qualcomm/Vzw Gobi chip so only 2G Edge is available on USA T-mobile. If you are rooted you can flash a NVM file from Bionicbootstrap instead of steps 1-7.
Click to expand...
If you do this can you insert a tmobile sim card loaded with 100 minutes and use that?
 
I don't have one like that which you are asking me to try. However, most USA T-mobile based cards do not seem to work based on others who have tried. It is very hit and miss. AT&T based cards like Straight Talk which run on HSPA work well. I suspect it is because of T-mobile's AWS band deployment that those sim cards favor those bands. Maybe only older Tmobile Edge cards work. It's not really known. Overseas T-mobile sim cards /networks that utilize HSPA seem to work fine from my experience. In any case, if you got a US T-mob card to work it would only provide Edge service.
Here is my phone roaming in the USA on AT&T with a uk (tmobile I think) sim card.
1337643724925_G.sized.png
 
To reset APN on the Bionic for Verizon ... (like when it is nailed by a software bug in an app) ...

Dial ##7764726
Password 000000
Select Verify
Select 13 APN Controls
Select APN Config Edit

Select First Verizon IMS
Apn: VZWIMS
Set MMSC: <Not set>
Set MCC: 310
Set MNC: 004
Set APN type: ims

Select First Verizon Internet
Apn: VZWINTERNET
Set MMSC :http://mms.vtext.com/servlets/mms
Set MCC: 310
Set MNC: 004
Set APN type: default,mms,dun

Select Second Verizon IMS
Apn: VZWIMS
Set MMSC: <Not set>
Set MCC: 311
Set MNC: 480
Set APN type: ims

Select Second Verizon Internet
Apn: VZWINTERNET
Set MMSC : http://mms.vtext.com/servlets/mms
Set MCC: 311
Set MNC: 480
Set APN type: default,mms,dun

Select Options
Select Save
Select Back button until back at home screen

(Thanks to Lars for his help in documenting this information.)

... Thom

 
Lars said:
I don't have one like that which you are asking me to try. However, most USA T-mobile based cards do not seem to work based on others who have tried. It is very hit and miss. AT&T based cards like Straight Talk which run on HSPA work well. I suspect it is because of T-mobile's AWS band deployment that those sim cards favor those bands. Maybe only older Tmobile Edge cards work. It's not really known. Overseas T-mobile sim cards /networks that utilize HSPA seem to work fine from my experience. In any case, if you got a US T-mob card to work it would only provide Edge service.
Here is my phone roaming in the USA on AT&T with a uk (tmobile I think) sim card.
1337643724925_G.sized.png
Click to expand...

Thanks, my tmobile card is like really old though, like 3 years old.
 
We are attempting to accumulate Tips in this thread. If you need to continue this discussion on how one of the Tips relates to your situation ... please start a new thread for that discussion instead of posting it here. Thanks for your help.

... Thom
 
Thom Little said:
I learned about this in another Android forum and tried it out.

Verizon apparently sets the default service option to EVRC and you can set it to EVRC-B to get better coverage. Some people think it increases battery drain. I have seen nothing definitive about that opinion.

Use the "hidden menu" to set it ... in Gingerbread (on the Bionic) ...
Select Phone
Select Dialer
Type in ##program and hit the connect key
When the display comes up type in 000000 and hit the Verify key
When the menu comes up select 06 Test Mode
When the Test section comes up hit the Next button at the bottom of the screen twice
Select the Service option at the top of the screen (it currently says EVRC)
Choose the EVRC-B option
Select Home button
You now have EVRC-B set until the next time you power off/power on. (Apparently earlier versions of Android allowed you to set it once and it was retained. Gingerbread resets it to the EVRC.)

I have not changed any other options on any of these "hidden menu" screens and do not know what impact changing any of them would have.

This single option seems to be "a keeper". I don't know what this option does to anyone's phone.
All I can tell you is that it is how I am currently running.

... Thom
Click to expand...

Just an FYI...

I tried this and it worked good, except that it broke my universal inbox notification widget. I got email but the widget no longer worked. I reverted and it's now working again.
 
We are attempting to accumulate Tips in this thread. If you need to continue this discussion on how one of the Tips relates to your situation ... please start a new thread for that discussion instead of posting it here. Thanks for your help.

... Thom
 
Thom Little said:
Suggestion from ... Slomo26 ...

To get the OTA pushed to you automatically go to ...

Settings | Battery & data management | Data delivery | Social applications

Make sure Sync over Wi-Fi only is Off
Then Power Off
Then Power On

... Thom
Click to expand...
Will this work for Ice Cream Sandwich?
 
This was a correction when a Gingerbread OTA was being pushed out and some people were automatically getting it and some people were not. It would not work on a WiFi-only configuration.

The OTA could be requested from the Verizon website and the same code would be downloaded.

The ICS OTA has not been released so I don't known the answer to your question. My assumption is that it won't work automatically on a WiFi-only configuration either.

... Thom
 
I didn't see this explained anywhere else, but thought it would be helpful.

In GB, I had created a homescreen voicemail icon with my passcode and "new messages" button. Here's how I did it on ICS.

The default icon is a preset contact and cannot be customized. Not only can you customize one with your passcode, you can also add text to the icon.

1. Edit your voicemail contact. Add a new phone number that is *86,[your passcode]#1 and the '#1' is optional. This takes you immediately to new messages.

2. Then click in the category field just to the right of the number and scroll down to Custom. Add a label name. I used VZW as I want to distinguish this direct dial voicemail from my home voicemail. Click Save at top.

3. Now add a Direct Dial widget to your home screen, and it will pop up your contacts for you select one. Select the new voicemail number with custom category you just created.

The icon will be called Voicemail and have the custom label you added embedded on it!
Screenshot_2012-10-27-22-05-28 md.jpg
 
Thanks for the tip from Doogald ...

If you are going to use a third-party SMS app, just go into stock messaging and turn off notifications. Do not disable the stock app.

... Thom
 
With thanks to doogald for a clarificaiton.

You can add your own .mp3 files to ICS for use as ringtones or notifications.

Create a folder in your SD-Ext card with the name ...
ringtones
... perhaps in the root ...
/media/sound/ringtones
... and copy your .mp3 file there. It will then show up as an option in the ringtones sound dropdown.

Create a folder in your SD-Ext card with the name ...
notifications
... perhaps in the root ...
/media/sound/notifications
... and copy your .mp3 file there. It will then show up as an option in the notifications sound dropdown.

The .mp3 that I use for notifications is attached.

(If you have duplicate folders named ringtones or notifications with copies of the same .mp3 files they will show up as duplicate entries in the dropdown lists.)

... Thom
 
With ICS you no longer need a third-party app to take a screenshot simply hold down ... Power/Volume Down until it is taken. There will be a loud click.


To remove the loud click ...
  • You must allow installation or non-market apps ... System settings | Security & Screen Lock | Unknown source ... select Allow installation of non-Market apps
  • Download Enforced Stream Silencer (attached below)
  • Run Enforced Stream Silencer
  • Check the option Disable STREAM_SYSTEM_ENFORCED
I installed it and it seems to work. Root-ing is not required. I do not know who wrote the app.

There are no guarantees ... use it at your own risk. If you are not comforatable with any part of this installation ... I recommend that you don't do it.

... Thom
 

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