Jan 20

How to Hard Reset Motorola DroidPerforming a hard reset on your Motorola Droid will erase all data from your device. There are two ways you can perform a hard reset. One option is hardware based where you use a button combination before the device boots into the Android OS. The other option allows you to use the software menus.

Note:  We highly recommend backing up all of your data before performing a reset on your device. The hard reset will clear all data on the Droid like application data, recent call history and bookmarks. Data on the SD card is preserved unless you choose to format it.

Hardware hard reset your Motorola Droid

1. Turn the Droid off. If it won’t turn off, take the battery out then place it back in.

2. Open the keyboard and press the X key while pressing and holding Power. The device will power on. Keep holding the buttons down until a yellow triangle appears on the screen.

3. Press the Camera and Volume Up buttons at the same time to get to the menu. (I had to press them several times to get it to work).

4. Use the direction pad to the right of the keyboard to select the Format option.

Software hard reset your Motorola Droid

1. Open the Settings app from Home > Menu or tap the application slider and select the Settings icon.

2. Select Privacy.

3. Choose Factory data reset.

4. Select Reset phone.

The hard reset process will take a few minutes. When it’s complete, you can reboot the Droid and it will be reset to factory default settings, just like it was when you pulled it out of the box. The device is ready to be used again, sold to another user, or placed in storage. Data on the SD card like photos and music will still be present. Be sure to pull the SD card out of the device or format it if you don’t want it to get into the wrong hands.

Resources:

Download the Motorola Droid User Manual
Buy the Motorola Droid Verizon Phone in TheBlueDot store.  

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Dec 09

Smartphones are amazing things, they help us organize our lives, keep in touch with friends and they manage to take countless amounts of hours from us with addictive games. With the big 10 cent Android Marketplace sale going on I thought it would be a great time to ask the staff what their favorite smart phone games are.  Some didn’t even play games on their smart phone… amazing I know! But at least half our staff had some favorites they wanted to mention. The very first one on our list is obvious enough…

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Dec 05

Android phones are shy no more with the recent release of Cluzee, an app that is ready for download on the Android Marketplace. Cluzee is a lot like Siri in that you have full voice control over your phone. Not only does it have full voice control though, it talks to you. For example, in the demo video released, if you have a doctors appointment the app will remind you of it when it’s getting close, but it also depends on how far from the doctors office you are. If you are a good distance away it will remind you earlier, or if there is traffic it will warn you to avoid those streets and then remind you of your appointment. It’s like having an overly caring and nosey friend in your pocket!

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Oct 31

The day of costumes and candy are here again, which includes hordes of children going door to door for their candy treats. Younger children are almost always accompanied by parents or older siblings, but what can parents do to feel better about letting their children out on their own. Well, if your child owns an iphone, Android, Blackberry or Windows phone you’re in luck. On all of these smart phones there are GPS location apps that can help you keep track of your little trick or treaters.

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Oct 24

Technology has grown pretty quickly the past 20 to 30 years. This generation back to generation X of the 80′s are more accustomed to quickly changing tech, which gives them an edge when something new comes along. The generations before were more accustom to calling a specialist when something goes wrong, while more recent generations tend to search Google before giving up and finding a specialist. Since there are rarely any Cellphone specialist on hand for your parents, the children tend to be the tech experts, when in reality they simply know where to look on Google. My parents both recently got Droids. My father owns a Droid X for Verizon, like myself and my mother owns an LG Vortex for Verizon. Whenever I come home they always try to spend an hour with me asking questions about their phone and how they can make it work for them. In the time I have spent with them going over some basic tools for their smart phone, and some more complex, I think  I can safely give you all a few things to tell your folks when they leap into the smart phone world.

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Oct 05

So the apple conference came and went. No word on the iPhone 5 yet, but apple did officially announce the iPhone 4S, an improved iPhone 4 that may just be worth the upgrade. So what are these major improvements to an already popular iPhone edition? Voice. It seems the next generation of smart phones are really pushing voice control and the iPhone 4S touts Siri, an advance voice recognition software. In the testing room many people got to try out this new software and one of the first things many people tried to do was slip it up. The folks over at Engadget.com asked it weird requests “We tried to psych it out with a bunch of random requests, including the history of Chester, Vermont (a lovely town) and the best Ramen places in San Francisco. Siri never faltered, never missed a beat.”

Google may have had the first step into the future of Near Frequency Technology, but Apple now has their foot out the door with advance voice controls. No matter what people threw at the new Siri software it seemed to keep up with them almost every time. Voice control may seem like a minor thing until you try it out, I get slight chills every time I am able to control movies on my Xbox 360 via the Kinect voice controls like characters did with their computer on Star Trek. But voice controls aren’t the only thing the new iPhone 4S is packing!

The iPhone 4S has quite the hardware, like the apple A5 dual-core processor, making menu navigation and app start ups appear much quicker. Not only does the iPhone have a new processor, it also has a new camera. The iPhone 4 had a 5MP camera with 720p video capture. The new iPhone 4S has a 8MP camera and 1080p video capture. When being tried out in the test rooms, it appeared the camera had better resolution, but it was difficult to tell if it was better at capturing images. The room was, apparently, inadequate for testing such a thing, so we will have to wait for hands on reviews of the camera to find out if it has improved in capturing as well. The battery has taken a bit of a downgrade, though that can be blamed on the new hardware. In standby, the iPhone 4S lasts about 200 hours, which is 100 less than the iPhone 4. Depending on what you do for a living, and how often you charge your phone, this may be an issue.

Already, people are beginning to trade in their iPhone 4′s for the upcoming iPhone 4S, even though the iPhone 5 may be just around the corner. The new iPhone 4S will retail from $199 for the 16GB model, to $399 for the 64GB model. If you’re looking to update to the iPhone 4S and want to get rid of your iPhone 4, you can trade in your old iPhone 4 with us at TheBlueDot.net

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