Android phone and Unix

Author: Solène

Date: 06 September 2016

Tags: android emacs

NILIf you have an android Phone, here are two things you may like:

Org-mode <=> Android ###

First is the MobileOrg *app* to synchronize your calendar/tasks

between your computer org-mode files and your phone. I am using

org-mode since a few months, I think I do pretty basics things with it

like having a todo list with a deadline for each item. Having it in my

phone calendar is a good enhancement. I can also add todo items from

my phone to show it on my computer.

The phone and your computer get synced by publishing a special format

of org files for the mobile on a remote server. Mobile Org supports

ssh, webdav, dropbox or sdcard. I'm using ssh because I own a server

and I can reliabily have my things connected together there on a

dedicated account. Emacs will then use tramp to publish/retrieve the

files.

[Official MobileOrg website](https://github.com/matburt/mobileorg-android/wiki)

[MobileOrg on Google Play](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.matburt.mobileorg)

Read/Write sms from a remote place ###

Second useful thing I like with my android phone is being able to

write and send sms (+ some others things but I was most interested by

SMS) from my computer. A few services already exists but they work

with "cloud" logic and I don't want my phone to be connected to one

more service. The MAXS *app* provides me what I need : ability to

read/write the sms of my phone from the computer **without web

browser** and relying on my own services. MAXS connects the phone to a

XMPP account and you set a whitelist of XMPP mails able to send

commands, that's all. Here are a few examples of use:

To write a SMS I just need to speak to the jabber account of my phone

and write

sms send firstname lastname hello how are you ?

Be careful, there are 2 spaces after the lastname ! I think it's like

this so MAXS can make easily the difference between the name and the

message.

I can also reply quickly to the last contacted person

reply to Yes I'm answering from my computer

To read the last **n** sms

sms read n

It's still not perfect because sometimes it lose connectivity and you

can't speak with it anymore but from the project author it's not a

problem seen on every phone. I did not have the time yet to report

exactly the problem (I need to play with Android Debug Bridge for

that). If you want to install MAXS, you will need a few *app* from the

store to get it working. First, you will need MAXS main and MAXS

transport (a plugin to use XMPP) and then plugins for the differents

commands you want, so, maybe, smsread and smswrite. Check their

website for more informations.

As presenter earlier on my website, I use profanity as XMPP

client. It's a light and easy to configure/use console client.

[Official MAXS Website](http://projectmaxs.org/homepage/)

[MAXS on Google Play](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.projectmaxs.main)