Tutorials | Virtual Thoughts

If you are someone who is interested in making life easier using technology or using it to quickly troubleshoot network and system related issues or uncover the hidden secrets of the networks right from your Android Mobile phone, then the following list of apps might just be of help for you. Most of these apps have been tested or found working on Samsung Galaxy S running Android 2.2 (Froyo) & 2.3.3 (Gingerbread).

Network Discovery:

This tool allows you to scan the network including Wi-Fi as well as the Data network. Network Discovery provides options to customize the scan on various parameters like Discovery using PING / DNS requests, Multiple Threads, Rate control etc. The scan results can be exported to xml format.

Once the host discovery is completed, you can take the scanning to next level to perform port scans. A very useful little utility to quickly find out the systems in your network and the open ports on them. Reminds me of nmap, but there are no options to use the customized switches and it is not as extensible as it.

Android Market Link: https://market.android.com/details?id=info.lamatricexiste.network

Android VNC

One of the very handy tool for any Network or System Admin is the VNC applications on the desktops, irrespective of the Operating Systems. Android VNC brings this to mobile computing. Android VNC is based on GPL licensing and there is no worry of ads to eat up the screen! You can also import or export the settings from existing clients including TightVNC, RealVNC, x11VNC & Apple Remote Desktop.

Android Market Link: https://market.android.com/details?id=android.androidVNC

KeepassDroid

If you store all the credentials in an encrypted format, then Keepass is a must have tool to keep them secure. There is the mobile version as well for Android Phones. But there is no way to Sync between PC and Mobile, however you could accomplish the same using the ~~Dropbox~~ App for Android.

Android Market Link: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.dropbox.android

ConnectBot
ConnectBot is an open source application that facilitates SSH, TELNET and Local connection to the devices on the network. The LOCAL connection option allows you to probe your Phone similar to the shell command on a linux machine. However the supports for commands are limited unless you have rooted your phone. It allows multiple SSH sessions, create secure tunnels, and copy/paste between other applications.

Android Market Link: https://market.android.com/details?id=org.connectbot

WiFi Manager

If you have used Network Stumbler, then I am sure you will love WiFi Manager. It provides easy to use and navigate GUI to list the networks based on signal, SSID, Frequency Channel, Security status etc with the option to Connect to the desired network. There is an Auto Scan option as well as Manual mode. If you use it in conjunction with other tools, quite a handy app as well to detect rogue AP points.

Android Market Link: https://market.android.com/details?id=org.kman.WifiManager

PING

There were two apps infact that I wanted to list, one was Ping & DNS – A handy tool that would not only PING but also give DNS information about a IP. Second one was a utility by name PING, a simple utility to check the response times with an ability to save the list. The former does not get a mention because the About App feature says that the app anonymously tracks & reports user activity inside the application for enhancement in future! This is a no for me.. While the latter App is now removed from Android market.

Part 2 of this article coming soon….

I am a big fan of Twitter and am sure you love to tweet as well. Many a time I have been irritated with some unwanted info being floated around in twitter. It could be a #hashtag, a political drama, tweets about reality shows, justin bieber, britney spears, IPL, etc. But these are being tweeted by the people you follow and you generally like their tweets but it’s those times and events that you would have done away with?

What do you do? Unfollow temporarily ? This may not be an option due to many reasons like you may forget the handles, you really do not want to unfollow etc. If you are using Tweetdeck, there is an interesting option called Mute using which you can filter or block tweets. You could accomplish this using selected Keywords, hashtags, sources and twitter accounts as well. All these without unfollowing.

To enable this option:

Open Tweetdeck
Click on Settings
Click on Global Filter
Enter relevant fields
Click on Save Settings

I understand there are many other plugins and apps that will accomplish the same but rather than subscribe to multiple services, you could use one app for all of it. The only shortcoming that exists as of now is that the filters set on one platform are not replicating on the others, meaning if I have set up the filter on Laptop I am not seeing the same on Tweetdeck for android on my phone.

UPDATE [May 2014]:

Twitter too has finally launched mute option for its web, as well mobile version. Unlike the other apps like Tweetdeck, Falcon Pro where you can mute based on Keywords, sources or specific APIs, Twitter for web only lets you mute on the username. Here is how you do it on web or using the App for iOS/Android:

To mute a user from a Tweet, tap more and then mute @username. To mute someone from his/her profile page, tap the gear icon on the page and choose mute @username.

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Virtual Thoughts

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Android Apps for IT Admins