Running Out of Space in Android

I have an LG Optimus V on Virgin Mobile and have been fighting to keep enough space on the phone (over 18MB) to keep getting email and text messages.

Yesterday, while mucking around with the netflix.apk, the install failed because of my lack of space, but the space taken up by the apk wasn't released. So now I had 4MB of free space and no way to get back that I could figure out.

Fed up with the whole thing I backed up some data and restored to factory settings and started over.

As I installed apps to the SD card, I realized that it was also taking away space from my onboard storage. A couple tests proved that no matter where you installed the app (onboard or SD) you still lost the space of the apk (at least) on your onboard storage.

I'm not sure if this will help anyone else out there but if your low to medium-end android phone is running out of space, it might be because you have too many apps on your SD card. :-/

Day 09 – What OS/distribution do you run?

My main computer runs Ubuntu. I haven't used it in months because I'm working on completely renovating my house and the house I'm renting while I do that has no internet (O_o) except for whatever my cell phone can provide, so I haven't set it up. My other main computer is a Toshiba M405 tablet laptop that dual boots Ubuntu and Windows 7. I use it the majority of the time nowadays and kind a go through spells where I only use windows or only use ubuntu. It also helps to have both when one of them feels crashing on me. I used a Powerbook G4 (aluminum 15.2") with OS X Tiger and it was great but, all in all, it got old. Windows XP, 2000, 98 are all junk in my eyes. I'd rather not have to touch them. Windows 7, with everything that Microsoft has copied from Apple and Linux and who knows who else, works rather well and as much as I hate to say it, I like using it....but don't get me wrong, I'd rather be in Linux.

Day 08 – Preferred method of communication with humans

It kind of depends on my mood and how awake I am at the time, but overall, I prefer text based communications most of the time. I'll call you if you have to, but I would rather text you or email you. IRC used to be one of my preferred ways of human contact but with less and less time, I don't get on at all lately.

Day 07 – Preferred smartphone platform. And which do you use?

I prefer android. I've been wanting to switch to it for awhile and haven't been able to because of the AT&T contract that I was in, but I finally paid the cancelation fee and switched to a no contract carrier. I've used windows mobile and it really didn't do anything for me, wasn't my style. I've used iphones for awhile and while they were great before android, they've lost my respect. The 3GS, to jailbreak, you have to plug it to a computer and run the software each time....it's horrible to have to pull out your laptop, hunt the proprietary usb cable down and run the software, while in your car, outside of a client, trying to get your phone running. Then you plug it in to the car charger, come out of the client and the phone used more power then it was getting and died again anyway.....
I used blackberry for under a month and it kept crashing on me and I ran out of space quick...but the camera flash was NICE.
So yeah, I'm on android now. Froyo and a phone that's in the middle of the specs spectrum but is as good or better as the 3GS that I had. It lets me do what I want, I'm not stuck to someone else's design ideas. Widgets, direct call and text buttons, direct link to a dropbox folder, all there. USB, Bluetooth and Access Point tethering without having to root it. I've been happy with it. The lack of a lot of space on the phone itself for data is kind of annoying, especially when I have 17MB left and it says I'm almost out of space, but oh well.

Day 06 - Primary geek fuel (snacks/drinks)

Water, Coffee, Tea.............Soda, in that order.
Pretzels, chips/salsa, pizza, ramen noodles (and the like (like that food where you peel off the plastic, poor some water, dump in the dried veggie things and heat it all up...that stuff)), in no particular order.
sleep. :-/

Day 05 - Quick nifty hacks you're proud of.

I once did a really crazy looking extension for a firewire cable in a computer using electrical extension crimp things.
I don't know, there's some things but I guess I'm not proud enough of them to remember them, and they are almost all hardware hacks.

Day 04 - Greatest application written to date

wait...what? I don't write applications...not *that* kind of a geek. I once wrote this really cool airline program in programming class that was pretty big and had a lot of options.....:-/