Android Tips and Tricks

To remove an icon from the home screen, simply press on it, hold and drag to the Trash at the bottom of the screen

To quickly hide the on-screen keyboard, press the Back button

You can speed up the page load speed on your browser by disabling JavaScript.

To do this, open your Browser, then Menu – More – Settings. Scroll down and untick JavaScript

Please note that this may affect the functionality of some sites.

To use custom ringtones for your phone ringtone, your alarm or your text message notification, simply copy an MP3 file to one of the following folders:
/sdcard/media/audio/ringtones
/sdcard/media/audio/alarms
/sdcard/media/audio/notifications

If they don’t already exist, then create a new folder.

The file will then show up when you want to change your ringtones.

For Ringtones go to Settings – Sound – Phone ringtone
For Text Messages go to – Settings – Sound – Notification ringtone
For Alarm, set the sound when you add a new alarm

While typing emails or notes, you can simply tap the space key twice and the phone will insert a full stop / period

If you are running low on phone memory, you can look for your largest applications to uninstall. Go to Settings – Applications – Manage Applications and press Menu. This will then filter your apps by memory use

To bookmark a website on your homescreen, go into your browser and find the bookmark of the page you want to create a shortcut for.

Then long press on the bookmark and select Add Shortcut to Home.

If you regularly visit certain websites, this can be handy as you will have a shortcut to the site on your homescreen.

Instead of the simple swipe gesture to unlock your phone, you can set a custom unlock pattern which can be extremely difficult for a thief to guess.

From your homescreen, go to Menu – Settings – Location and security – Change screen lock. Then chose Pattern to set one up.

It is also a good idea to untick Use visible pattern. Then if someone is watching over your shoulder while you entering your pattern, it will be harder for them to remember the pattern.

If you have forgotten your unlock pattern, then after 5 unsuccessful tries a button will appear saying ‘Forgot pattern’. Press this and you will be asked to enter your Gmail username/password. The phone will then ask for a new unlock pattern. If you don’t have a Gmail account, then you will have to either call your carrier or factory reset your phone.

While you can slide the unlock bar to bring your phone out of standby, another quicker way is to double press the Home button.

This may be disabled on some networks. Also, this will only work if you do not have a PIN or Pattern enabled to unlock your screen.

To install this useful widget, long press on the home screen and find the widget. You will then be able to disable battery consuming features like WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS