Some questions :$

[Guest blah blah blah]

Okay i got me san francisco a while ago, but haven't done a great deal with it apart from unlock it.

One thing is was wondering is, is there an application for linux or windows or something that anyone can recommend for sorting out my contacts / managing stored messages and all of that kind of stuff?

Because when i imported them off my old phone to my sim card it kind of split multiple numbers for certain people up, adding 1 or 2 or whatever onto the end of their names, so i need to sort this really and it would be a lot quicker on a computer (plus maybe there's a program to automate it?).

Another problem comes with doing text messages on the phone. It's very difficult to move backwards and forwards in the message in order to edit it and if i try to put the cursor in a place that is at the end of a line, i have accidentally pressed the send button before. Is it possible to get it so that there is no send button and you access it from the settings menu for that screen?

Also, another great problem is knowing how many characters i have left - for some reason if i switch to landscape view, it never tells me how many i have left. Even if i am in portrait view, it will only tell me when i am near the end of a message, which is rather annoying to be honest as i would like to know all the time.

Also, it can switch how many characters i have if i accidentally use a character not available in the encoding for the text message i am using (for example i think there are at least 3, allowing 160, 140 and 70 chars respectively?). It would be nice for the keyboard to only allow input of characters in the current sms encoding and also to be able to manually then switch encodings if needed.

I guess advice on good keyboards to help with this might be good too. The touchpal it comes with is okay - at least it has cursor keys (although they are annoying cos you cannot hold them down to travel further, you have to tap multiple times).

Maybe some of it would be fixed in android updates. The best thing for me to do is probably back up the original orange stuff i already have. Then i'm not sure what i would really want to install as all the different roms seem confusing - i don't really know what is the difference. Just something that runs well, doesn't break things and has the latest features. What extra features do roms tend to have over the latest stock (2.3? or is it 2.31 or something)?

Oh, also, when i switch between orange and giffgaff sim cards, will it require me to manually change all the operator specific numbers every time?

And if i set orange to forward calls to my giff gaff number (both payg) when the orange is not available (and vice versa), would that cost me money?

Thanks for your help :)

[Guest hedgepigdaniel]

I'm not sure what your old phone is, but if you save contacts on your SIM card, then you should import them to your google account in your phone and then edit them (on your google account) until they are right. delete them from your SIM card or disable SIM contacts - it only confuses matters.

I recommend swype as a keyboard. If you upgrade your ROM to 2.3 then the stock keyboard is much better. HTC IME is also good.

Android 2.3 is the latest yes. I use Cyanogenmod 7 (the latest nightly is the best bet). It's very slightly unstable but is the best out there in terms of features. By all accounts Ginger Stir Fry is a very stable 2.3 ROM. You can use clockworkmod to make a complete backup of your phone. You will then need to upgrade to Gen2 via TPT to install 2.3 ROMs.

all billing questions depend entirely on your providers

[Guest k0zmic]

Gingerbread also has a little cursor so selecting text is easier, I'd recommend Swiftkey Keyboard from the Market if you can't get used to Swype.

A different SMS app like GoSMS might show the character count.