Roundup: Favorite tips of 2012 4

After a roller coaster of a year in 2011 for webOS, the pace of news for 2012 was definitely a lot slower. For the first time since webOS was released in 2009, we did not see any hardware released or software updated for existing devices. Instead, the focus on 2012 was on Open webOS, the open source next generation of the webOS operating system that was officially released this past September. While existing webOS devices will not officially be able to run Open webOS, there are still a lot of users who are proud (or stubborn, depending on your perspective) to keep carrying on with their webOS devices, be it the TouchPad, Pre3 or Pre2, Veer, or even a few brave folks still using a Pixi or Pre+.

And there is nothing better at webOS Nation that we like to do more than to make your webOS experience the best it can possibly be. So as long as there are webOS users out there, we will continue to bring you our Tips of the Day, with over 425 and counting for you to view.  As we close out 2012, we wanted to look back at some of our favorite and most used tips of the year.

• Roundup: 2nd year anniversary
  • There were a lot of great tips from the first half of the year, including our tip celebrating our 2 year anniversary of delivering our webOS Tips. Some of the tips from the early part of the year that was in this roundup included some gems as how to view all your purchased apps with Impostah, Setup Save/Restore for automatic backups, Clean up "undefined" calendar entries with AgendaZ, Set Internalz Pro as your default Text Editor, and how to manage or edit your TouchPad launcher by Adding additional launcher tabs or Editing you TouchPad Launcher pages with SubOrbital.
  • For Angry Birds fans, it also includes directions on how to transfer your progress between webOS phones and the Touchpad, or from webOS to any rooted Android device
  • And of course, there was our fun April Fools tip on How to turn on your webOS device!
• Remote access your TouchPad files with Gemini File Manager
  • Use Gemini File Manager to view and save all of your TouchPad's files on any computer or device with a web browser!
• Gain full access to your TouchPad with File Explorer
  • With the latest update to the File Explorer, you can easily gain full access to the file system on our TouchPad, not just limited to the USB drive of the device. This was the first time we saw another file manager app beside Internalz Pro that allowed you this level of access to your device.
  • File Explorer is also handy in that you could copy, move or delete multiple files at once, which is not available in Internalz Pro. Note that Archive Manager, by the same developer and which File Explorer was based on, can also move or delete multiple files, but you will need File Explorer if you want to copy.
• Enable auto-run for Save/Restore ZIP file creation 
  • The WebOS Internals' homebrew app Save/Restore is great to backup your important application data in case you ever need to webOS Doctor you device, swap it out with a new device, or even transfer data between a phone and TouchPad. With some simple additional steps in the device, you can set the app to ZIP up your Save/Restore backup, but you also need to perform a few extra steps to get that to be part of your nightly auto-run on a Save/Restore backup
• Workaround for Application Database is Full error
  • There is a nasty little error that you may get on your webOS phone that tells you that your "Application database is full" (or is able to be full), and when this happens you need to restart your device. unfortunately, it doesn't make it clear that it will essentially perform an "erase apps and data" and log you out of your profile, requiring you to reactivate your device and log back in, also losing your application data and settings.  And to add insult to injury, you may log back in to your profile and still get that error once you activate it again. Luckily, webOS developer and former Intern for both HP and Palm Donald Kirker has a step-by-step guide on how you can increase the size of your database partition to avoid this error
• Google Maps homebrew app by Jan Herman (72ka)
  • Although webOS has officially abandoned Google Maps in favor of Bing maps, homebrew developer Jan Herman (72ka) has been actively working on a homebrew Google Maps app that not only surpasses the official Bing Maps app in many ways, but also the old Google Maps app that we used to have.
  • Among many of the great features of this homebrew app includes the ability to change views/layers, activate Follow Mode, view Google Maps Street View and Drop a marker pin / create favorite places in Google Maps. It also allows you to save business search results directly to your contact list that includes some details as the hours of operation and website addres for the business.

So there you have it, some of our favorite tips from 2012. What were your favorite tips from the last year? If you have any good suggestions for the next year, feel free to contact us and suggest it