Tag Archives

Android SMS Backup

By Sunday, September 16, 2012 0 Mobile , , , , Android Backup Project Permalink 0

On Android devices, SMS messages are stored in a database on the device, with no built-in way to sync them with some online cloud service (compared to the contacts for example, that may be synchronized to your Google Contacts account).

For this reason, it is worthwhile to put a little effort into setting up a backup scheme for SMS messages – which is the goal of this post.

I use the SMS Backup & Restore app, which is free on Google Play store, along with its free network add-on (which is required for the E-mail and Dropbox-upload features).

This post was written using v5.93 of the app.

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Android Apps & Data Backup with Titanium Backup

By Saturday, September 15, 2012 0 Mobile , , , , Android Backup Project Permalink 0

Backing up an Android device is a broad term, that entails various levels of backup that cover multiple aspects of the data on your Android device, using different tools.

In this post I write about using the Titanium Backup app (or “TB”), which is available to download from Google Play store for free. It also has a paid pro version. TB requires a rooted device to work properly.

TB allows you to perform a user-level apps & data backup – including all (user/system) apps and their data, but excluding low-level stuff like the kernel and the Android stack. This is very useful when changing ROMs and wiping the device data in the process, as it allows restoring the apps on the new ROM including the state and data related to each app.

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NANDROID Backup

By Friday, September 14, 2012 0 Mobile , , , , Android Backup Project Permalink 0

Backing up an Android device is a broad term, that entails various levels of backup that cover multiple aspects of the data on your Android device, using different tools.

In this post I cover the concept of NANDROID, which refers to a low-level backup of the device, including practically everything that resides within the partitions on the NAND flash of the device – kernel, ROM, apps & data, system data, etc.

NANDROID backup is a snapshot of your device at a specific point in time. As such, it allows restoring the device to the exact state it was when the snapshot was taken. This is a pretty good safety net when experimenting with the device.

NANDROID backup does not include data on the SD card!

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Rooting My Samsung Galaxy S2 Android Device

By Thursday, September 13, 2012 0 Mobile , , , , Permalink 0

Finally, I have decided it’s time to root my Samsung Galaxy S2 Android device.

Some of my reasons for rooting:

  1. Installing custom ROMs / mods and kernels requires root access.
  2. Performing a good backup of the device (apps & data, system & user) requires root access.
  3. Getting rid of unwanted system apps requires root access.
  4. My M.Sc. research will include writing a kernel module for the Android kernel, so better start getting comfortable with low-level now, right?

This post is a detailed (photo-documented) walkthrough of the rooting process. The rooting is done using Odin3 and CF-Root.

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