GUIDES [WM]: How to Increase Battery Charge Life (On Android - Pre"Android Guides")

[GUIDE]Registry Tweaks for Volume

Sorry if this has already been posted but there are a couple of things that are worth outlining to most users.. for example there are registry entries that allow you to change the volume and increase it significantly beyond windows actually supports and there are various other edits.. but one edit i really would like is to disable the Incoming Call Bubble..(haven't found a solution for it yet) but i thought i'd just provide everyone else with what i've found so far. (I take no credit for these registry edits)


Volume Edits

HKCU\ControlPanel\Volume\

DWORD - Ringer
(HEX)Increase it to 0x#<change it to 5 or higher> to increase it to its maximum volume. - Only tested on the Atom Life
(DEC)Increase it to over 5 to increase the volume

DWORD - Volume
Same as Ringer DWORD

In Call Edits

REMOVE SOUNDS WHEN ADJUSTING VOLUME INCALL
HKCU\ControlPanel\Sounds\StandardIncallVolume
HKCU\ControlPanel\Sounds\QuietestIncallVolume
HKCU\ControlPanel\Sounds\LoudestIncallVolume

STRING - Script
Remove the 'p' in the script strings to remove the noises while in a call. This makes the volume increase smoother and removes the annoying noises.

INCREASE INCALL VOLUME

HKCU\Control Panel\SoundCategories\InCall

DWORD - InitVol
Defaults to around 2 - 5, Increase this to 5 or Higher


Ringtone Edits

HKCU\ControlPanel\Sounds\Ringtone0

STRING - Script

htcwiki said:

cN = set volume to N in percentage max volume
fN = flash notification LED for N seconds
p = play ringtone. Note that this will play the ringtone all the way through before continuing with the next code.
r = repeat. Note that this should be the last code in your Script string, if used at all. The repeat will be from the most recent a. So: v3apr will vibrate once then repeat the ring signal.
vN = vibrate for N seconds
wN = wait for N seconds. Note that the device will wait this long before continuing with the next code.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

RINGTONE VOLUME
HKCU\Control Panel\SoundCategories\Ring

DWORD - InitVol
Defaults to around 2 - 5, Increase this to 5 or Higher

Notifications Edits

HKCU\ControlPanel\Notifications
This works for any Options DWORDs in most if not all of those strings.
NOTE: DOESN'T WORK WITH the PHONE STRING (ring notification)

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2008/06/24/tweak-and-configure-how-notifications-work-in-windows-mobile-notifications/ said:

• 0 - Show icon
• 1 - Show icon and play notification sound
• 2 - Show icon and vibration
• 3 - Show icon and vibration and play notification sound
• 4 - Same as 0
• 5 - Same as 1
• 6 - Same as 3
• 7 - Same as 3
• 8 - Show icon and notification bubble
• 9 - Show icon and play notification sound and show notification bubble
• 10 - Show icon and notification bubble and vibration
• 11 - Show icon and play notification sound and show notification bubble and vibration
• 13 - Same as 1

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

nir36 said:

Setting URL associations

This issue doesn't contain much info.
Every browser (at least to my knowledge), contains the option to choose it as the device's default browser.
when chosen, every URL ran will be loaded using that browser.

for instance, if you are using UltimateLaunch and you set an icon to run http://www.xda-developers.com, it wil be loaded using the default browser.

If you found this guide useful please Donate.. (all donations go to TZABACH Wounded Animal Service)

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

url associations are located under HKCR\'protocol'
e.g. if the address begins with http then the association for it is under HKCR\http
ditto for ftp, mms, etc.

so, to change the association for http, open your favorite registry editor, navigate to HKCR\http\shell\open\command and change it (default is iexplore %1)
note: typically you would want to edit https to match http

"How to retrieve CAB Files from PC Installation Files" or "Retrieve CABs"

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

I've found recently that some desktop installers can be opened up with 7-zip (these were sk software installers from handango). You can get the cab that way as well.

Another way to do it is with Sk Tools (you need one of the two latest versions). Install the software through your pc, then go to the 'Installed Programs' tool. Highlight the program, and select 'make cab.' Done! Now, if you want to get tricky, you can register the program (if it's paid for) and tweak the settings. Do a deep scan to see if any additional reg keys have been created. If so, after selecting 'make cab,' go to the Action menu and select 'Add registry value.' Add all of the new values to the cab. You can also add files that may have appeared (such as setup databases-or a start menu shortcut, if you moved the shortcut). Now, when you create the cab, it will have all your settings cooked in. Be sure to name it properly, so you don't do something dumb like post it on the web with your registration info in it. This has worked pretty well for me, although I've had problems re-packing opera mini 4.2.

How to add your City to both manila 2d and 3d.



If you are trying to add your custom city to either manila 2.1 or 2.5, then try this application first, if you do it properly you should not need to do it manually as my directions below, thanks to JVH3 : http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=546141









5. Double click the CityName you will be changing, Add the city, here it is Jersey. When done click apply changes.
6. Add the region and state if required. You will know if you need to do this by viewing another city in the same country, for UK we don't need to do this,
but US you do.
7. Double Click Country and alter as per item 5.
8. Don't bother altering longitude and latitude, they are all mostly set at zero.
9. Change the accuweather code you have found as per example, always applying changes afterwards.
10. IMPORTANT - Change the timezone to the correct minutes as per a similar city in your country, mine is 0 for GMT, Spain is -60, Turkey is -120 and so on.
11. Finally change the msid code to one relevant to your country (this will ensure your city is easily found in its proper country and not anywhere else) so the UK is 85, Spain is 105, China is 210 and so on.
12. When you have finished all alterations click on the save data base at the top (next to the open button) and close sql lite programme.
13. Ok all alterations needed have been made to the manila file. You now need to right click the manila file you have just altered and re-apply the read
only attributes from properties.
14. Transfer the manila file to ur sd card or any other location (apart from windows folder) by what ever means, active sync, bluetooth etc.
15. Open Total Commander on your PPC. Navigate to the manila file you have just transfered.
16. Click copy/move and copy it to the windows folder.
17. Ensure the copy was successfully by navigating to the windows folder and checking the date on it, it should read todays date if it was successful.
18. Now at this point, i would soft reset the device to apply the changes to the manila file (i find this is the most reliable way, some people depending on
version don't have to do this)
19. Once rebooted, run the weatherdata base editor. Check you city is on there in the relevant country, you should find it easily, then close the programme.
20. On your home screen, click the clock, add your city and highlight it so it is set as local.
21. On your weather tab, find your city and update the weather.

If you have followed the guide, you will now be able to see your weather in the tab and the calender tab (depending on manila version)...... CONGRATS!





For Touchflo 2d - Scotchua has already done a very good guide here so please give him your thanks

One thing that wasn't noted in his guide was to ensure to remove the read only properties from the xml file, then re-apply them after saving your changes. Then just copy the file using total commander as the guide states

This article is writen by HobbesIsReal and originally posted on www.wmexperts.com .

Just add a short comment on registry editing tools:

The best WM regieditor running on desktop is CeRegEditor, it includes many useful functions such as registry comparision etc.
The combination of DotFred's TaskMgr.exe + Total Commander make us never need a stand-alone registry editing tool on device.
Plus for a real tweak addict better purchase the SKTracker, another 'tweaker's dream'.


Original Article:
How To: Edit the Registry
Posted on Wednesday, Feb 20, 2008 by HobbesIsReal


Registry Edits (or as some call them hacks or tweaks) are often times one of the great mysteries of the WM world that can either totally baffle or flat out scare the bejeezus out of first time WM phone owners, or even sometimes veteran users for that matter. But with a little direction and a few proactive and preventive steps, these fears are more often than not largely exaggerated. Registry edits are cool, useful, helpful, can fine tune / optimize / personalize your phone, or sometimes might simply be important to know how to do in order to fix your phone. Editing the Registry is easy, can be safe, and fun to explore and that is what this article is geared to do.

A lot of registry editing tutorials are really short, expecting the reader to have some experience or knowledge with it already, and assume you already know basically what they are talking about. This article is assuming you have never heard of the registry, let alone what you can do with it. I will show you how to safely backup, explore, and edit your phone's registry. The goal here is to clear up all the urban legends about physically and literally blowing up your phone in a ball of flame, resulting in burning down your house and loosing all of your worldly possessions just by tweaking the wrong thing in your WM phone's Registry... and then to open up a whole new world for you with your WM phone.



First thing's first: What the Heck is the Registry??

First of all, please note that due to how complex the registry is under the hood, that I have taken some liberties in simplifying some of the terms and definitions. In other words, from a programmer's point of view, I am not going to be completely accurate or comprehensive. But from a user's point of view who simply wants to edit their WM phone's registry to stop their Bluetooth LED light from blinking and annoying the heck out of them, it is perfectly accurate info.

WikiPedia has a pretty good definition of what the Registry is:
Now that you still don't have a clue what the registry is, let me try to explain it. Think of the registry as a single file that holds nearly every possible setting for your phone, the WM OS, any software or game installed on the phone, etc. Think of it as a single file that basically tells the phone who it is, what it has on it, and how to do everything you want it to do. Think of it as just one big file with all the settings for your phone (the hardware), the Operating System, and the software installed. So for example, if you wanted to keep the keyboard backlight to stay lit for 60 seconds instead of only the highest option available of 30 seconds in the settings, you can go into the registry and change it to 60 seconds yourself.

So no matter what you call it, registry edit, tweak, or a hack, you are simply just changing a setting on your phone. That's it. Nothing more.

Editing the registry is officially and traditionally considered a task saved for power users only. But with the instructions and tools in this article this wonderful tool can be opened up to anyone with a WM device.



Safely editing your registry

Not to scare you off from having fun with the cool suggestions in this article, but now before we get started is the perfect time to address the fears of blowing up your phone with editing your registry... look at the reality of any possible risks, and how to restore your phone to its previous state no matter what you do. The two main fears that new users have when starting to look into the registry is:
Both of these are valid... but only to a point. As you will see below, you can stop your phone from working by editing the registry, but this can usually and easily be fixed by a doing a hard reset. The second is not a major concern either, as long as you have a current backup, which is easy to do.


The Reality of your possible risks



It is important to know that if you are editing the registry and it is done carelessly or without a few simple precautions, you can easily stop your phone from working and lose all of your personal data. In a case like this, you have more than likely not "bricked" your phone, but have caused an error where it cannot run "as is" with the changes you made, but it will run again as soon as you do a hard reset. A hard reset changes it back to as if it just left the factory. In other words, the phone will work just fine again, but none of your personal information or software you installed will be on the phone any longer.

The bottom line is that when playing with the registry, you should always be able to hard reset the phone to wipe out any bad errors you may have caused, but in the process wipe out your personal information as well. So in reality, for the most part, the only thing at risk is your personal information, settings you have changed, and software you personally installed, which is really easy to backup and restore so you can have it all back again.

I guess for liability sake, I have to say to "proceed at your own risk" as Murphy's Law often times proves, anything can happen no matter if it is likely or not. Beyond urban legend reports of someone posting that they heard from their best friend's wife's manicurist's dog walker's cousin's mom, who is a totally reliable source that works at a Sprint's independently owned mall outlet in Backwater, WY that they saw a phone another Sprint rep was working on that was totally bricked because the customer edited the wrong key in the registry... I have personally not seen a situation where a hard reset cannot fix a registry edit (and I know someone somewhere is going to point out where and why I am wrong about this).

Basically put, you should be able to recover from nearly any published and verified registry edit with no real worries beyond having to do a hard reset and restore you latest backup.



So again, if you do make a change in the registry that stops your phone from working, then there are two simple steps to get it working again:

1. Do a hard rest on your phone (see the manual for your phone to see which buttons you need to push while you use the stylus to hit the reset button)
2. Restore your latest backup with all of your personal information and settings

That's it. These two steps are the worst that you should face. No balls of flames... no eternal paperweights.

continue



Safe steps to take when editing the Registry

There are two points of advice I will always give to anyone when tweaking their registry.

The first is to not just go around in the registry and start changing settings willynilly just to see what happens, as you will get unexpected and sometimes fatal results, but instead to stick only with published tweaks that have been posted in articles, proven to work in forums, or found in books. There is always a percentage that will stand out as exceptions, but with most of these published and verified tweaks, even if you accidentally enter in the wrong setting, you can still just go back in and correct it. No harm, no foul.

My second point of advice is a strong one... no one, no matter how experienced, should ever touch their registry without doing this step first! That is to do a complete backup each time before you edit your registry to make sure that all of your latest settings and personal info are saved and ready to restore at anytime for any reason. Sprite Backup or SPB Backup are the two backup programs I personally recommend.

This is absolutely the single, hands down, MUST HAVE software! There is nothing more frustrating (or heartbreaking) than when you just got your phone all set up just like you want it, and you have all your contacts entered, all your games installed, all the registry tweaks are just the way you want them... and then... tragedy strikes and for whatever reason, you are forced to do a hard reset on your phone wiping out all your changes and bringing the phone back to the same state as if you just opened the box for the first time. Either backup program will work fine. It is often times more of a personal preference vs features. I personally use Sprite Backup.








Registry Editors

Generally speaking, whenever you open up a window that has any options to adjust any settings, this is simply a visual and simple interface to making a registry edit (think of it as a mini registry editor). So for example, let's say that you wanted to change your phone number in the Owner Information for your phone. You could open up a registry editor, navigate to the correct spot where the owner information is stored in the registry, open up the correct Key, change it to your new phone number, and save it (you will be able to do this BTW by the end of this article). Or from the Today Page on your phone you could simply click on Menu / Settings / Personal / Owner Information. Then when the window pops up with all of your contact information, you change the phone number and click save.

Either way, you did the same thing... you changed a setting in the registry. So, little did you know that you have been doing Registry Edits all along on your phone, but never even realized it!

But to give you a real opportunity to browse all the settings in the Registry, then you will need a Registry Editor. There are loads of them available ranging from free to around $30. As with anything, some are better than others. Below are is probably the popular free and pay for registry editors.

My personal favorite and the one I have used for the last several years is the Resco registry editor included in Resco Explorer 2007. The cool thing about Resco Explorer 2007 is that is also includes THE best file manager for WM, built in picture viewer, encryption to protect your personal information, networking browsing, supports ZIP compression, and has an FTP explorer. It also gives you the advantage of drag and drop options along with multiple selection. This is a MUST HAVE software application for any WM phone, IMHO. In fact, look for my in depth review of this product in the very near future at WMExperts.com. When giving step by directions I will be using Resco Registry Editor.


The best Free Registry Editor is PHM Registry Editor:



Registry Tweak Programs that do it all for your



There are also programs that when you open them up, they look just like settings in WM. It puts a safety net in between the user and the registry. You change anything you want and it will edit the registry in the right spot for you. This is by far the safest (and fastest) way to do the most common and the most popular registry edits without even getting your hands dirty. If you are really intimidated (or too lazy to do it yourself) then this is a great solution. If this is the way you want to go, you don't even need to read any further as the rest of the article shows you how to do what these programs do all by yourself. The downside to these options is that you are limited to only the registry edits that they offer. Tweaks2K2 is a good (and very popular) example of this.

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Understanding the Structure of the Registry





Now for those that want to learn how to edit the registry themselves, let's dig in. In order to follow someone's direction of where to find a setting to change in the registry, you will need to know the basics about how the registry is organized and some basic lingo (i.e. subtree, key, subkey, or value). So this is the only time that we are forced to get really geeked up in this article.



What's all that now?

Okay first of all, there a few words that we need to make sure everyone understands so that we are all talking on the same page. Here are some basic terms and what they mean:

tree

key

subkey

value
A value holds a specific setting in a subkey. Think of it like a file. This is what it is all about... getting to the value of a key or subkey to change its setting. There are several different type of values, i.e. Dword or binary. You usually do not have to worry about this when editing values are already in the registry, as they are already assigned as the appropriate value type.

address


How the registry is organized

This is only important in this article with the eye of being able to navigate in the registry and how to find a specific value (or setting) that someone shares on a forum, article, or book.

The registry is organized in a tree structure. When you look at the registry in a Registry Editor, it looks very similar to what your PC looks like when looking at it with Windows Explorer. You will always start with one of the 4 subtrees when trying to find a value to change in the registry. Here are the subtrees that are in the registry:

HKEY_USERS

HKEY_USERS is sometimes abbreviated as "HKU."

HKEY_CURRENT_USER

This key is sometimes abbreviated as "HKCU".

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

This key is sometimes abbreviated as "HKLM."

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT

This key is sometimes abbreviated as "HKCR."


Navigating the Registry

Phew... now we got past that part, let's show you how to navigate in the registry. It is really pretty easy. As I mentioned above the registry is organized in a tree structure, much like hard drives and folders are organized on a Windows PC. There are two ways to go to the value you want to change. You can drill down in the tree structure (folders) to find it... or you can do a search and jump right there, if you know exactly what the name of the subkey or value is.


Navigate to a Value

First of all let's show you how to actually navigate on your own to a specific value. Most of us have seen how we might write a location of a file on a Windows PC. You first put the hard drive (subtree) followed by a folder (key) followed by a subfolder (subkey) followed by the document name (value) with each part separated by a backslash "\". It might look like this "C:\My Documents\Work\Expense_Report.xls". It is exactly the same with a registry address as well. You put the Subtree (think of C:\ or D:\ on a PC) followed by a Key (think of folder) followed by a Subkey (think of subfolder) followed by the Value (think of file) with each one separated by a backslash "\".

For example to change the startup homepage for Windows Mobile Internet Explorer in a registry editor you would go to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Start Page" and change the website address to what you want, i.e. "http://www.WMExperts.com". This is really easy as when you first open up a registry editor you will see the 4 Subtrees. In this example you will see a + sign next to the Subtree called "HKEY_CURRENT_USER". Simply click on the + sign. Now you will see a list of Keys (folders). Scroll down until you see "Software" and just like before click on the + sign. Then scroll down until you see "Microsoft" and.. you guessed it... click on the + sign. Now scroll down until you see "Internet Explorer" and click on it. Now in the window below that you will see the value (file) called "Main". Click on it to open it. After it opens then simply type in the homepage you want your Mobile Internet Explorer to start with, i.e. "http://www.WMExperts.com" and click save or done. That's it. You just edited your registry. It is that easy.

Now I want to walk you through one more very popular registry edit with screen shots for every step of the way. I will be using Resco Registry Editor for this example. This registry edit is called GlyphCache... why they named the subkey that is beyond me, but what is important is that this tweak can greatly speed up how fast your phone runs and responds! This is often times the very first registry hack that veteran WM users will do when they first buy a new WM phone. Here is how you might see this registry edit spelled out in a forum, book, or article:
What this means is that we need to navigate to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\GDI\GLYPHCACHE\" open up the value called "Limit" and change the setting to either "4096", "8192", or "16384" and save it.

Okay, now this is how to actually do it. Once you open up Resco Registry Editor, you will see all 4 of the Subtrees.

Click on the + sign next to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE". And you will see the keys expanded below it.


Now in the top window, scroll down until you see "System" and click on the + sign so that all the subkeys are expanded out below it.

Next scroll down until you see the subkey called "GDI" and click on the + sign to expand it out as well so that you see "GLYPHCACHE" and click on it.


Now with the "GLYPHCACHE" selected, look at the bottom window and you will see the value called "Limit" currently set to "8192".

Click on the value called "Limit" to open it up. Do not change the name of the value, but do change the number to either "4096", "8192", or "16384" (hint... the more RAM your phone has, the higher the number you want to choose) and click "Done".


That's it. You just did yet another registry edit. If you find the number you chose actually slows down your phone, then follow these steps again and choose one of the other numbers until you find the one that is best for your specific model of phone.

Search for a value

Now if you know the exact name of the value (setting) then you can do a search for the value instead of drilling down to find it. This is also very helpful if you know the name of the value, but do not know what key or subkey it is under. So, let's do the exact same registry tweak as above, but this time let's find it by searching. First, click "Menu" and then "Find".

In the search window, type in "glyphcache".


Click on "Done" and it will start searching the registry...

If it does not find the exact value of the subkey you want, then click on "Menu" and "Find Next". Repeat as needed until it finds the one you are looking for.


Once it finds the value or subkey you are looking for, in this case "GLYPHCACHE" under the subkey "GDI", click on "GLYPHCACHE" and look at the bottom window and you will see the value called "Limit".

Click on the value called "Limit" to open it up. Do not change the name of the value, but do change the number to either "4096", "8192", or "16384" (hint... the more RAM your phone has the higher the number you want to choose) and click "Done".


Now you just did a registry edit by drilling down in the registry tree and by searching for it.


Getting ready to move on to the next one

Above is a pretty good example of how most registry edits are done. Some registry tweaks will require that you change two or more values. Just repeat the above steps for each value you have to change.

Some registry edits will require you to add a value. I would recommend that you only do this after you have had experience working with the registry. There are several different kinds of values and you have to make sure you have the right one, and with all the right settings. This is beyond the scope of the goals of this article.

If you feel a registry hack is too complicated for your comfort level, no worries, just skip it.



Good Registry Edits to Start With

When looking at registry edits posted on forums, on websites, in articles, or in books, it is important to know that some of them are specific to a version of WM (i.e. only in WM 03) and that some are specific to a certain model of phone (i.e. Treo 700wx). Normally, when this is the case, this information will be posted with the registry edit, but if not and you try to find it on your phone and the value you are looking for is not there, then there is a good chance this is why. Just move on to another registry tweak.

After you make a registry edit, some of them will not take effect until after you do a soft reset with your phone. This is basically just rebooting or restarting your phone. On most phones you take the stylus and stick the tip into a small hole on the bottom or edge of the phone for 1 second.


Special note for Registry edits & soft resets WM 05 & WM 06

Due to the way WM 05 & WM 06 manages its memory, the registry changes do not get saved or applied to the phone for several minutes after you make the changes. If you need to do a soft reset using the reset button, you should wait several minutes to make sure that phone saves the recent changes. If you reset using any one of the various software reset utilities available, it will commit your changes to storage. In short, if you reset using the reset button shortly after making registry changes, then you will keep seeing your changes being undone unless you wait a while for the changes to have a chance to be saved. If you must know more, you can look here for a little deeper explanation why this happens.


Where do I find all the good registry edits?

You can do a Google for PocketPC, Windows Mobile, or WM as the first word, along with hack, tweak, or edit in your search query. But the best place to look is in forums for your specific handheld. Do a search with any combination of reg or registry with hack, tweak, or edit. Most forums for a specific phone will usually have one thread that has become THE registry edit thread with several other smaller ones with some great tweaks in them too. You can also look in threads for other phones with your same WM OS. For example, if you have a WM 03 phone, most any reg hack thread for any WM 03 based phone will work. As a side note a lot of the reg hacks for WM03 will work with WM05 & WM06, but certainly not all of them. But as a general rule, all of the WM05 reg hacks will work with most WM06 phones just fine.


Here are some great places to get started:

• WM05 / WM06 Registry Edits
• PocketPC Tweaks
• Some great New Reg Tricks
• Reg Tweak: Enable Power Management to save battery life
• WM5 / WM6 Tweaks
• Wiki Registry Hacks
• Windows Mobile Registry Hacks, Part 1

Additional Resources

For those with that need to scratch that itch on the geeky side of their nature, here are some real in-depth articles on the Windows Registry giving you more information than you ever wanted to know (or could stay awake long enough to read through). Even though these focus on the registry for Windows for the PC for the most part, much of the information applies directly to the registry on WM as well:

• http://www.trendsmobile.com/main/showsection.asp?SectionID=96
• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/256986
• http://www.microsoft.com/technet/archive/winntas/tips/winntmag/inreg.mspx?mfr=true
• http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms724871.aspx
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Registry#Manual_editing

So! What are you favorite Registry Edits?

GUIDES (Android): COMING SOON! (help needed)

How to Increase Battery Charge Life by Eliminating Sleep-Mode Rogues


Several Things to Understand

(1) Every time an instruction executes, the battery loses a tiny amount of charge.

(2) A given app executes a number of instructions per second that is often (but not always) dependent on the amount of user interaction with the app. So, using that app for X amount of time will drain your battery by Y amount. Although the app coders and ROM cookers may squeeze a bit more efficiency out of the system through code optimization, battery drain caused by using apps is largely fixed and you can do nothing about it other than not using the app (which, of course, defeats the purpose of having a smart phone).

(3) The above is the bad news. The good news is that most of us (particularly if one is gainfully employed) interact with our phones for a relatively small percentage of our 24-hour day (during which time we have little control over battery drain, as mentioned above). That is very good news, because it means that during most of our 24-hour day we can (potentially) control battery drain. My phone uses less than 1% per hour on standby precisely because it really is on standby. This is not rocket science; and I will explain how to do it.

(4) What "He Who Is Sworn to Do No Evil" does not want you to know. (Or: Google Meets Pocahontas.). The Android OS and many of the thousands of apps are free, right? Wrong! Nothing in life is free. The heart and soul of Google and others in this business is data collection and monetization of the collected data. Doing so takes lots of CPU cycles, including all of yours that these companies can possibly wrangle from you without upsetting you too much. Think of this analogy... The English arrived at Jamestown and traded shiny beads and trinkets for food, land, and other valuable stuff. Google and company trades you a shiny new OS and app toys in exchange for your data, which they have thus far managed to monetize in amounts greater than the GNPs of many countries. I wonder how many of those screaming for Froyo and Gingerbread realize that increasingly intrusive CPU cycle-hungry data collection tools will be imbedded in every succeeding version of the shiny new OS/app toys. I believe that the rate of increase of those cycle-stealing data collection tools over time will be limited only by the rate of hardware performance improvements over that same time, such that the natives do not get too restless due to lag, battery drain, etc.

How to Fix Your Battery Drain Problem

So now, if you have endured my philosophical rant (or have been clever enough to skip to this point), here is how to fix your battery drain:

(1) Purchase the Pro versions of SystemPanel and Titanium Backup. (No, you will not be able to accomplish this with the free versions; don't waste your time.)

(2) Configure SystemPanel ("Settings") to enable Monitoring, AppCPU Monitors, AppCPU Time, System Monitor, and System Processes. Under Monitoring Settings, checkmark to enable "Start at Boot," "High Priority," and "Status Bar Icon." Under Plot Settings, checkmark "Usage Plots," "CPU Plots," and "App CPU Plots." Said plot settings will cause logarithmic plots to be drawn. This will reveal small values that otherwise might be hidden down at the bottom of the vertical axis.

(3) Now, on the screen that first appears when you start SystemPanel, you will see all apps that are currently loaded in RAM and active as entries with a grey background at the top of a long list of entries, with the heading "Active Applications." At the left of each app entry is a bar graph displaying CPU activity for that app in real time. The next series of entries, labeled "Inactive (Cached) Applications," with aqua backgrounds, consists of apps that are (supposedly) inactive, with stubs cached in RAM. This group merits an occasional glance during the analysis. Although there should be no bar graph activity for these apps, I have sometimes caught the Market app burning significant CPU cycles while presumably cached. The third and final series of rust-colored entries is labeled "Internal System Processes." Some of these bar graphs will show CPU activity. This is a highly suspect area, because it includes data collection processes built into the OS and running in the background.

(4) Although the real-time monitoring tools are interesting and may be useful to "catch" an app or process burning cycles when the app/process should be inactive based upon your current interaction with the device, this tool is limited precisely because you must catch the app/process in the "act."

(5) So, now press the Menu key down at the bottom left of the screen and then "Monitor" to get to the good stuff. There are two tabs at the bottom of the screen, "Live" and "History," with "Live" being the default when you pull up this screen. The good stuff is under "History." The default screen under "History" shows battery charge state, "Device Usage" (not clear what this means; it is not explained in the Help and I have not yet contacted the developer to ask the question), and CPU Activity. CPU Activity is key to our current effort. You can choose the time period for which the CPU activity is displayed by pulling down the arrow at the upper right of the screen. I rarely use any time period other than 2 or 8 hours. 8 hours is, of course, spot-on for monitoring while you are sleeping. 2 hours is better for a higher-resolution view when you have been using an app for period of time and wish to view the CPU utilization over that period of time.

========>> While the phone is not being used, it should spend a significant amount of time in sleep state. That is indicated by the green CPU activity color disappearing completely during some intervals along the timeline. The overall appearance reminds me of a cityscape, the green bars being the buildings and the sleep periods being empty space between the buildings. If, while your phone is on the table, not being used (with wifi, Bluetooth, and GPS turned off, of course), your history graph shows solid green along the timeline, then, irrespective of the height of the green areas, you will have confirmed that your unacceptable battery discharge rate is being caused by some app/process that is running while you do not want it to be. However, you will not yet know the identity of the evil app(s)/process(es). Also note that the total CPU utilization (green bar height) should be not much over 1%, if present at all in a particular time slot.

(6) To find which apps/processes are causing the problem, pull down the "Plot" arrow at the upper left of the screen and select "Top Apps." The resulting screen is a list of apps/processes ordered according to highest CPU usage over the period of time selected using the upper-right down arrow dropdown menu (e.g., 2 or 8 hours). While you are sleeping, your smart phone should be too! Following my sleep period, my phone shows only 2-4 apps with anything above 0.0%. The app with the most usage will show only about 0.2 to about 0.4% And (this is key), the "suspend" process should be toward the top of the list. Take note of any app/process that is out of line here.

(7) Now, fire up Titanium Pro. It will take Titanium awhile to load its database and display a list of all apps/processes installed on your phone. Press the Menu key and navigate to "Filters." Make sure that all three filters are set to "All." Press back key then press the "Backup/Restore" tab at the top center of the screen. Scroll down the list of apps/processes to find the potential cycle-sucking app/process that you identified in the previous step (6). Do not un-install anything!!!! Doing so is unnecessary, could damage your system, and may be counter-productive in any case because it may cause changes in your system beyond simply disabling the suspect process/app. The key here is, to the best of your ability, to change only one thing at a time in order to precisely pinpoint the problem. Short-press that app/process entry to get to an action page for that app/process. Press "Freeze!" You will receive a pop-up bubble confirming that the app/process has been frozen, and the "Freeze!" button will have changed to "Un-freeze!"

(8) Now, let the phone rest for a couple of hours, then look at history again to see any effect on CPU utilization from having frozen the single app/process.

(9) Repeat this process with additional suspect apps/processes until the damn phone sleeps like it should as described in (5) above. If a frozen system process or system app causes instability, just un-freeze it.

(10) Not by accident, I suspect, the Android OS treats the closure of an app ambiguously, at least from a user perspective. How do you "close" an app? (Meaning, for purposes of this discussion, instructing an app to keep a stub in RAM if it likes but not to execute any further instructions until explicitly opened again at some point in the future.) A few apps have an "Exit" button. Others go into this state when you back out to the top of the screen tree. Other apps stay "conveniently" ambiguous when you back out to the top of the screen tree and may show CPU activity thereafter. If you simply cannot live without an app that falls into the latter category (by keeping it frozen), then you may have to explicitly kill it after you finish using it. Ones to watch in this regard (in my experience...ymmv) include Market, Astro, Google Maps, Google Earth, Gallery(?), CardioTrainer (a REAL CPU hog), Dolphin Browser & Plugins, DRM Protected Content Storage (x2???), and Media Hub (this one is really scary).

(11) Another possibility, for an app that you rarely need, would be to keep it frozen except while using it. It only takes a few seconds to fire up Titanium and do the freeze/un-freeze. I have not found this to be necessary, though.

Miscellaneous Notes:

(a) I ony used Advanced Task Killer once in awhile and always in manual mode. It is now frozen, replaced by SystemPanel. Just long-press on an app/process to get to a kill option.

(b) Antivirus was causing too much drain, not because it utilizes much CPU at any given moment but because it must necessarily run constantly, as is the nature of an anti-virus application. I was ambiguous about this decision, but decided to do it on the basis of the ongoing contraversy/doubt as to the risk of virus infection on the Android platform.

(c) The JI2 vs. JI6 modem contraversy regarding battery drain is trivial, imho, compared to the results that you will get by following the instructions above. I highly recommend the system that I am using, described below. It is fast, stable, and the supposedly more sensitive/powerful JI6 modem causes practically zero battery drain in the sleep state.

(d) As a bonus, your phone will charge very quickly because the spigot is not open at the bottom, draining while you are charging.

(e) Although this post is mainly about battery utilization during idle periods, a simple step came to mind for decreasing battery drain during periods of use. The display consumes massive amounts of power. It is generally known that the Vibrant's AMOLED display is emissive, meaning that it emits light rather than passing light from behind. As a consequence, areas of black are created simply by turning the LEDs off in those areas, resulting in low power consumption for those areas. Therefore, black themes can result in significant power savings. Note that this is uber simple to do. Just install a black image as wallpaper! Icons, text, etc. seem to be nicely designed with a mixture of light and dark colors such as to be seen against a black background. In "contrast," the stock Vibrant light green theme is a big power waster. Some apps, like stock browser, will frustrate these efforts by drawing white or very light gray over the wallpaper. That results in an enormous waste of power, because all pixels must turn on to create white. And, needless to say, I keep my screen at minimum intensity except for some quick use while in the noonday sun.

Hmm...well, I guess I just wrote the tutorial.

Good luck!

Bruce

Here below is an example from a sleep period (my human sleep period, I mean) from 10:00a until about 6:00p. Shortly after waking up, I picked up the phone, fired up ShootMe, and took screen shots of the various SystemPanel history screens reflecting CPU usage over that 8-hour period while the phone was idle, screen off, and not plugged in to anything.

The round blue segmented battery state indicator was 93 when I went to sleep and 89 when I woke up. It fell to 86 during the 15 minutes while I was taking screen shots and looking at email. Not sure how to insert these images in-line, so I will just number the explanations, with each explanation pointing to a screenshot thumbnail, from left to right.

(1) This is the SystemPanel opening screen, showing the apps that were loaded while sleeping (and ShootMe, which I had just loaded).

(2) Moving to the monitoring section, second shot is of the real-time page. Note that CPU activity is low and flat until I begin interacating with phone. It is not really flat, as you can see in subsequent pages; but this particular screen is not drawn with logarithmic scaling for whatever reason, even though that option is selected in settings.

(3) Touching the "History" tab at the lower right of screen displays the total CPU usage over the eight hours. Note that the CPU rarely exceeds 1%, with a much lower average, and that there are a significant number of sleep periods where the CPU is suspended.

(4) Pulling the "Plot" drop-down at the upper left and selecting "Top Apps" displays a summary screen of the apps that were active at some time durng the eight hour test period. The list is ordered from most CPU usage, top to bottom. Note that only two processes, "System" and "System Processes" used 0.1% of CPU power during the test period. All others that were active during the test period at all used less than 0.1%! This is astounding but true, and is the reason why the battery indicator showed a drain of only (93-89) = 4% during the eight hour test period. Note that, at that rate, my phone could lie (lost, for example) in standby for over five days!

Now we will look at the actual graphs for each app/process to see at what points in time CPU power was utilized. Light touch each app/process in turn and scroll down to see the graphical views. The app/process graph is the top graph. Because of the way that we optioned settings, above, we will also see the entire CPU utilization (bottom graph) for comparison. Note that, in the case of "System Processes," a list of processes is hidden behind the "System Processes" button. The "System Processes" list is then treated the same as the main app/process list.

(5) "System" is a single process. Note that it alternately sleeps and wakes up at fairly regular intervals. While awake, "System" is consuming only the tiniest bit of CPU power. (What, maybe 0.01 or something like that? It is too tiny to be measured on this logarithmic scale.)

(6) "Suspend" is the next graph shown below. It is located behind the "System Processes" entry. It appears to use a bit more CPU than "System" as it executes the suspend algorithm. Even so, it puts itself to sleep sometimes.

(7) SystemPanel app usage is shown next. Note that it appears to wake up from a timer, at very regular intervals, to collect the CPU utilization data for each app/process during the previous interval and to store the data away in its database.

(8) The eighth that I will upload is the history for the "Email" app. It too wakes up periodically to do a pop3 inquiry for new mail, in my case.

So, there you have it. This is the way that you need to persuade your Vibrant to operate for decent battery life. As has been pointed out elsewhere, these issues are not about battery utilization during the night, when most people would have their phones charging anyway. I simply used a human sleep period as a convenient 8-hour test period for battery utilization during phone idle.

What this issue is really about is preventing battery drain that occurs during the day while the phone is not being interacted with or otherwise actively used by discovering and freezing the hell out of ill-behaved apps that, for whatever reason, be it sinister or simply poor coding, continue to operate after being told to stop.


Vibrant w/ Large NAND
16 GB Internal SD and Stock 2GB External SD
Bionix 1.9.1 w/ JAC UV/OC (not OC'd) w/Voodoo (Using SkOrPn & Master's Voodoo/Large NAND method)
(JI6 Modem)

A few tips;
Discharge the battery to 0% and then up to 100% at least once a month will help a lot.
If you are not using the internet turn off; 3G, cellular data, wifi. And if you want to connect only use one at a time. (Having wifi on without using it still uses battery)
Turn off bluetooth until you need it.
Turn off push notifications if you don't need them.
Do not use jailbreaks as they often make the battery performance worse.
Turn down the brightness.

Hey Guys

Hey guys,

If you found the guides in this thread helpful, please hit the relevant guys 'THANKS' button and help me to keep this thread clean.

'THANKS'

I would say to improve battery life on any android device and yet preserve the loveliness of the device is simple:
1. Allow less apps to push updates to the phone (use higher sync/push/retrieval time such 30 minutes or up).
2. Have less apps running in the background.
3. Turn down your screen brightness. (I would recommend turning off auto brightness and adjust it to a more lower %).
4. Use 3G/WiFi less, turn off Bluetooth etc when you don't need it.
5. You could choose a static wallpaper instead of a live one.

thanks............

lots of help,thank you!

How would I turn off push notifications?