10
Jun
sysadminmug_thumb

SysAdmin Series, Article #4: Port Scandroid vs OscanO

Posted by in App Reviews, Applications, Reviews, Tips & Tutorials
Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

A good diagnostic tool for any sysadmin is a port scanner to ensure a firewall is working as intended to open or close ports. When you want a quick and dirty scanning tool, there are some great free apps in the Market to do the trick. A quick search in the Market shows two apps which seem to be popular: OscanO and Port Scandroid.

Port Scandroid

This free app in the Market was written by Rich Jones of NewFreedomApps, found at http://www.thenewfreedom.net/ and the app is described by the author like this:

Port Scandroid is a port scanner for Android. It displays the reachability of a range of ports for a given host.

06
Jun
sysadminmug_thumb

SysAdmin Series, Article #3: Nagios Monitoring

Posted by in App Reviews, Applications, Reviews, Tips & Tutorials
Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Nagios is by far one of the best solutions for monitoring just about everything on a server, and it’s excellent API system means that anything it doesn’t include out of the box can be written in just about any programming language as long as the program output conforms to their standard. I’ve personally written dozens of modules for micro-managing network interfaces, disk IO and so on. I’ve even heard of elaborate schemes of detecting when system load is too high on web servers and launching more Amazon EC2 instances, or checking when load is low enough to terminate EC2 instances, all fully automated.

03
Jun
Decaf by 9Apps

SysAdmin Series, Article #2: Decaf - Manage And Monitor Your Amazon EC2 Infrastructure

Posted by in App Reviews, Applications, News, Reviews, Tips & Tutorials
Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Welcome back to the SysAdmin Series, where we pick apart another app geared towards system administration. My apologies for missing Sunday’s post, a family emergency kept me offline most of the weekend.

One of the very first apps I installed on my Nexus One when it arrived in February, was Decaf by 9Apps; it was also the first paid app I bought for my Nexus One. They’ve played with their pricing scheme over time – I bought the app for 4.99 Euros mid-February, they raised the price to 9.99 Euros a month later, then up to 24.99 Euros a few weeks ago, before settling on the current 19.99 Euros price.

03
Jun
doubleTwist

doubleTwist Releases Android Media Player App

Posted by in App Reviews, Applications, News, Reviews
Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Jon Lech Johansen from doubleTwist wrote to us today to let us know that they have launched a free app in the Market to pair with their popular desktop sync software for Mac and PC:

Today we launched our Android Player for music, podcasts and videos and it’s available in the Android Market as a free download. Google has built Android into a powerful, open platform; however users have been unsatisfied by the default media software built into Android and are not fully utilizing the media capabilities of their phones.

Jon goes on to list the features of the new Android app such as music and video playback in the same app with a simple interface, playback of iTunes-created playlists, support for audio and video podcasts, and support for ratings and play counts.

30
May
image

The Best 5 Twitter Apps For Android

Posted by in App Reviews, Applications, Apps/Games, Reviews
Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

With so many Twitter clients available for Android, it’s hard to decide which one best suits you. Although I don’t think that there’s a ‘best’ Twitter app on Android, because different applications excel in different areas, I’ve selected five of, what I believe to be, the best clients available right now. Each app is available on the Market for free, with some offering ‘Pro’ versions too.

 

Touiteur (Free, Pro Version Available for €1,99)

If you manage to spell it correctly when searching in the Market (which I failed to do several times), Touiteur is well worth taking a look at.

28
May
siriusxm

App Review: Sirius XM For Android

Posted by in App Reviews, Applications, Apps/Games, Reviews
Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

If you’re a Sirius subscriber, you’ll be glad to hear that the Sirius app for Android was released today! I’ve been listening to online radio on my Nexus One for the past few hours, and have come across no problems. Subscribers can get the app and login with their credentials to start listening to their favorite channels, and those of you who haven’t got a subscription for the service will be offered a 7 day free trial upon installation.

The layout of the app is similar to that of the Sirius iPhone application, with tabs at the bottom of the screen making it simple to navigate between categories and channels.

27
May
sysadmin-mug

SysAdmin Series, Article #1: ConnectBot

Posted by in App Reviews, Applications, Reviews, Tips & Tutorials
Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Welcome to the new SysAdmin Series, where we will cover apps and other tips and tricks for using your Android device to help you get the job done and stay on top of things in the realm of system administration.

Probably the foremost tool for any sysadmin is a good SSH client. My favorite so far is ConnectBot, by Kenny Root and Jeffrey Sharkey. At the time of this writing, this free, lean, simple SSH client is at version 1.6.2, weighs in at 352KB and has had more than 250,000 downloads and enjoys a 5-star rating from over 10,000 users, and describes itself as such in the Android Market:

ConnectBot is a powerful open-soure Secure Shell (SSH) client.

23
May
beautiful widgets

App Review: Beautiful Widgets

Posted by in App Reviews, Applications, Apps/Games, Reviews
Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

HTC's Sense UI (user interface) includes plenty of features that could make those with vanilla Android jealous, most of which involve the home screen. Phones running the custom UI have their own set of high quality widgets, which includes a "flip clock" that plenty of Android users seem to clamor over. The widget itself is four icons wide and two icons in height, and includes a clock that flips between numbers, the temperature, and icons to denote the current weather. The Flip Clock widget is so popular that alternatives for those without the Sense UI have begun to make their way into the Market, one of the most popular being Beautiful Widgets by LevelUp Studios, the makers of popular Twitter app Touiteur.

21
May
Sprint Mobile Hotspot App On HTC EVO 4G Hands-On

We Go Hands-On With The Sprint Mobile Hotspot App On HTC EVO 4G [Post Google I/O Coverage]

Posted by in App Reviews, EVO 4G (Supersonic), HTC, News, Phone Reviews, Reviews, Sprint
Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

As you may know, the HTC EVO 4G comes with a mobile hotspot capability out of the box, even in Android 2.1, for $30 a month.

While Froyo (Android 2.2) will indeed include a similar mobile hotspot capability baked right into the OS, it is unknown at this point whether Sprint will rip it out before shipping to the EVO 4G customers or not.

Regardless of what will happen in the future, we are here now, and Sprint included a mobile hotspot app with the EVO that is in dire need of reviewing.

Sprint Hotspot

The application is called Sprint Hotspot and is very straightforward to use.

13
May
QIK

Sprint HTC EVO 4G 2-Way Video Calling (and Qik!)

Posted by in App Reviews, EVO 4G (Supersonic), HTC, News, Phone Reviews, Reviews, Sprint
Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

By now, we have all heard the news: Sprint announced yesterday the HTC EVO 4G will be available June 4th. Among a number of touted features, its two-way video chat capabilities are unrivaled.

With two cameras, one on either side of the phone, this device opens up new possibilities. You can take snapshots or video while watching the results in realtime, or you can turn the camera on yourself...without turning the phone around.

The primary camera boasts a whopping 8 megapixels, while the front-facing camera has a slim 1.3 megapixels. That being said, it is still an incredible feature, allowing you to video chat straight from your phone.

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