I believe the gmail app is supposed to "push " messages to you. I don't see anywhere in it to set an interval for checking. There is in the mail app that shipped on the phone but that just uses POP or IMAP.

That stuff isn't in the GMail app. Like iPhone, it's in the settings area.

From the home screen, hit the menu button, settings, "Accounts & Sync."

Make sure both the checkboxes are checked, then under "Manage accounts," select the account with the lowercase "g" next to your GMail address (if there's more than one, I have a couple).

In there, select the services you want to keep synced. On mine, I have Google Reader (didn't know about it before, this got me to enable it, thanks!), Books, Contacts, GMail, Picasa Web Albums, and Calendar.

I had it half right.

Under accounts and sync both accounts had the green g next to them but only the first one I setup had the services to sync checked. It really didn't seem like either account was getting messages until I checked for them but after setting the second account to sync gmail, contacts, and calendar it seems to be working right.

Thanks again !

I do not have Picasa on there as a option for a thing to sync. Is there a Picasa app ? I looked when I got the phone but didn't see one. My device has something called "gallery" that is connected to my Picasa account somehow but it doesn't seem like it's from Google.

I believe that up until recent versions of Android, Gallery would sync with your Picasa albums automatically (a neat feature). I think it's only recently that they added a selectable option in the account sync setup that would let you disable it. But I'm not certain...

What does syncing picasa do for you?

Should I be using a task killer? I keep seeing a lot of those.

I don't use one. I would say you don't need one.

I installed AutoWiFiEnable and it is a great program thanks !

I pretty much only want the WiFi on at home and it has worked flawlessly. When I get home it's on and when I am out it is off.

The Android Market was featuring a great little app called Shush! recently, and I love it. All it does is detect when you've put the phone in silent or vibrate mode, and asks you when you'd like that to get turned off. You can easily hit a button to tell it to leave it on. It adds one more tap to silence your phone, but it's nice to not have to remember to turn the ringer back on, which would require at least another screen tap anyway.

Because of software like this I'm still divided on what I like more, a hard switch or software control. Being able to silence my phone without removing it from my pocket has been handy. On the flip side, a coworker of mine back in 2004 had a symbian based Nokia phone with software that let him set silence/ring settings based on location. At work his phone was always in silent mode, but automatically turned back to ring mode when he drove home.

I agree that there are great advantages to both of them. I used to have a Treo with the mute switch on it, and it was great to be sitting in a theater, the typical "turn off your cell phone" reminder comes on, and I can just reach in my coat pocket without even looking and mute my phone.

But that doesn't give you much control. I just installed Shush! on Monday, and I'd estimate that I used its functionality about eight times already. I like that it's a one-time process, and I don't have to remember later.

Android has a bunch of apps that do muting based on location (and Tasker can do pretty much anything on the phone based on pretty much anything else), but don't they put a drain on the battery?

Not sure on Android. On the iPhone when you develop a location app, you can decide what level of location resolution you need. If it's limited to just using WiFi and the cell tower triangulation, power draw would likely not be noticeable especially with the daily charge cycle most smartphone owners have. Only when you go for full GPS based location does power draw start to become a concern. Polling time would also impact how much power the app would use. Something set to once every few minutes would again probably not be all that bad.

The Symbian app my friend had worked purely based on cell triangulation, and he didn't see any noticeable reduction in battery life by using it, since the phone is constantly keeping an eye on cell towers anyhow.

Power wise with WiFi, I did do a recent test on an iPod touch, letting it sit connected to a WiFi point and always ready to accept an incoming Facetime call. It lasted over a week before it alerted that the battery was below 20%. Though I'm not sure how much more power draw is involved when a WiFi device is searching out other base stations for location vs staying connected to one.

The AutoWiFi app I am using says it doesn't use up the battery because it isn't using GPS to get your location it's going off which cell tower you are connected to. I can attest that it doesn't drain the battery and it does work. During the day when I am out the WiFi is off and when I get home it's on. I would thing something like that could be used to turn the mute on and off.

I never even thought about auto muting. I don't mute it much. I think something that un-mutes after a time would be better anyway. Unless you go to the same places frequently where you want the phone muted.

There are two "permissions" for location gathering in the Android API: course and fine. Generally speaking, these map to cell tower triangulation and GPS, respectively, but other technologies can be used, and there are ways to develop software for new ones as plugins.

I'm getting a hand-me-down Droid 1 soon- my first foray into smartphone-town.
I'll be doing some more research about how far the modders have gotten with the thing and what I'd like to do with it.
From what I've read it's the 'most hackable' Droid.

Probably because it was the biggest selling and highest-profile plain Android phone. You should have Froyo on that, I believe.

I haven't got it yet, but I think Froyo, too.
I was reading about CyanogenMod and watching youtube videos last night.
Seems that rooting, ROMs, and OCing are all 'one click' sort of deals at this point. Kind of nice to step in when everything is so well threshed out!
I'd like to get a 2800mAh battery to start off with.

I recently "rooted" my Droid X with z4root, which was slightly more than one click. It required me to reboot several times, and put my phone in airplane mode, before it finally did the deed, but it did work.

I haven't tried monkeying around with replacement ROMs or to strip the Blur from my MotoBlur. However, once rooted, I have a variety of coolness factors:

- ClockSync now keeps my phone firmly pegged to proper Atomic time (versus the 14 second drift I'd been measuring)

- I can tether without paying usurious fees (most common use: running 'git commit' or 'git update' from my laptop when traveling; otherwise, I tend to do mobile email from my phone, not my PC)

- I can do screen captures (and why this isn't built in like it is on an iPhone, I'll never know)

And, umm, that's really about it. I'd really like to have proper Gingerbread on my phone already, but Motorola and Verizon aren't in any particular hurry on that. (All the more argument to purchase a Google-branded Android phone like the Nexus S.)

Should I be able to preview doc and xls files in gmail? I installed acrobat pdfs open in that. I have download all files installed and when I click preview in gmail I get asked if I want to download it.

Do I need to install something to view doc and xls files?

GMail does not preview Office files natively. You have to install an app that will open them. I don't really know which ones are the best, but a search on the Android market should yield some results.

I just found out that my favorite freeware review site also has a section for Android apps.
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-android-apps.htm

Of course, if you want reviews of paid software, you'll have to keep looking.
It's a start, anyway.

Thanks I did look on there and there are quite a few I just couldn't believe there wasn't something built in. Just wanted to make sure before installing something else

Weird, my desire came with inbuilt microsoft office viewer/editor app

What's it called ?

I'm not sure why you'd be surprised. It would be nice, but viewing Office files isn't something built into any OS (technically, you can view .doc files in Windows 7 using Wordpad, but that's the only one I know of - perhaps Phone 7 has this capability?). The manufacturer can include third party software to view these documents, but that's up to them.

I believe the most frequently-added software for this purpose is Documents to Go.

Windows has been able to open Word files out the box for some time now.

iOS can open Word, Excel and PowerPoint files out the the box, as can WP7 (and so could Windows Mobile*).

I for one am very surprised to find that Android has no out of the box support for at least viewing some of the most common file formats on the planet. I would have assumed that they would have built that in from the start.

* actually I think some handset manufacturers didn't ship mobile Office, presumably because MSFT charged them more for it

iOS likely gains the office document viewing from OS X's quick look feature. It is an OS level service for quickly previewing files, and is extended by plugins. Out of the box, it can preview Office documents, iWork documents, common text files, and any media file QuickTime can play.

I'm surprised because my crappy four year old Blackberry could view .doc and .xls files without installing anything additional.

Anyone else install the Amazon app store ? http://www.amazon.com/mobile-apps/b?ie=UTF8&node=2350149011

I downloaded it and have been downloading the free paid apps of the day.

Today the free application of the day is SwiftKey. I was gonna buy it anyway after the demo I was using ran out so yay

This is what happens when you let people customize a phone UI:

http://fuglyandroid.tumblr.com/