Mostly Geek Stuff…

In my job, I sometimes have the need to access the console ports of networking devices. Since the serial port has gone the way of the floppy drive, this presents a peculiar situation. Now, the IT group hands out a USB-Serial adaptor, but most of them only support Windows, leaving people like us that run Linux struggling. This is the tale of such a struggle…

I had an urgent need a little while ago to configure a factory fresh switch and therefore needed the console connection. I whipped out my handy dandy Tripplite and plugged it in. A review of dmesg showed:

[ 1140.896302] usb 4-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

[ 1140.951279] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial

[ 1140.951309] USB Serial support registered for generic

[ 1140.951379] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial_generic

[ 1140.951383] usbserial: USB Serial Driver core

[ 1140.960174] USB Serial support registered for pl2303

[ 1140.960218] pl2303 4-1:1.0: pl2303 converter detected

[ 1140.972256] usb 4-1: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB0

[ 1140.972286] usbcore: registered new interface driver pl2303

[ 1140.972291] pl2303: Prolific PL2303 USB to serial adaptor driver

Ok, so it’s ttyUSB0…that’s not much help.  Next came my search for terminal emulation software.  I grabbed a couple from the repositories; minicomm and qutecom.  minicomm would have worked (I’m sure), had I wanted to spend a lot of time creating a config file, but I was in a hurry.  Qutecom looked pretty good, and it worked…sorta.  It has a unique UI in which you craft a line, then send it.  This is ok if you don’t want to use tab completion, inline help, etc. but didn’t really fit my needs.  Lastly, I tried Gtkterm and with an easy “fix”, it worked perfect.  All I needed to do was symlink ttyS0 to ttyUSB0 and viola…success.

I would like to say that it’s because I’ve been busy…well, ok it has been pretty hectic, but still. I have a few things to blog on, so maybe I’ll space them out over a few days.

Seems like everywhere you look, someone has a list of “top Android apps”.  Well, after spending almost a month with my Droid Eris, here is my personal top 10 list.

All of these are available in the Android Market from your mobile, and all are free.  Enjoy, and comment away!

1.  Barcode scanner.
Not so useful on it’s own, but this is an app that is used by many other apps to enable barcode (1D and 2D) scanning and lookup.

Project Homepage

2.  Locale.  It takes some patience to get used to it and to get this set up the way you want it, but once you “get it”, the power of this little app is awesome.  Basically, you create “if/then” profiles for your device.  For example:

If I'm at work, then:
- set wallpaper to Abstract
- set ringer to Default
- set ringer and notification volume to Level 1

If I'm at home, then:
- set ringer to RockSong
- turn on Wi-Fi

Those are both location-based “if” conditions, but other matches could be time, battery level, calendar, contact or location.  There are also several plugins available.

3.  Astrid.  Simply the best task list I’ve found.  The only thing that would make this better is the ability to sync with some other service besides RememberTheMilk.  I particularly like the ability to tag tasks, hide until, and set quiet times.  Integrates seamlessly with Locale to provide even more management of task visibility and reminders.

4.  Advanced Task Killer.  Best free task killer out there.  Let’s you kill those pesky, memory-hogging background apps without having to sift through non-running apps or core apps.

5.  Google Voice.  Want visual voicemail? Check. Want a secondary phone number on your mobile? Check. Want it all for free? Check.  Get it.

6.  Keyring. Stop carrying around all those keytag “loyalty” cards and get them all on  your mobile.  What’s that?  Those loyalty cards are just another Big Brother plot?  Maybe, but hey…you have a phone that’s tied to Google, so using loyalty cards to save a few bucks on groceries should pale in comparison.

7.  SportsTap.  Set your teams up and let this puppy run in the background.  It will provide updates for your teams if you can’t watch/listen to the games live.  Simple, but uber useful.

8.  HandcentSMS.  Text a  lot?  Get this.  Once you install this, you’ll wonder how you ever used SMS on Android without it.

9.  Weatherbug.  You want to know the weather right?  Well, this tells you.  Again, simple and effective.

10.  Astro File Manager.  File manager for Android.  What more can you say?  Ok, well this allows  you to move apps to the SD card so that you can keep rarely used apps without eating up your memory.  While you can’t run apps from the SD card, you can move them back if needed.

What do you get when you cross an e-book reader with an Android-powered touchscreen Netbook?  I call it awesome, but EnTourage calls it the eDGe.  A few pics and a hands-on demo can be found  here.

EnTourage website.

Great. More grass to mow...

Plus just think of how cool that would have been when you were a kid riding your bike through the neighborhood!  Read the original post HERE.