Over the years I have noticed that everything breaks when I am away from my workstation.

To avoid have to drive back to the office, my home, or the hotel I have been looking for a good set of Android applications that will allow me access to my code and publish it back to the server or a SVN repository.

The keyboard – A.I. Keyboard Free

The first thing I needed was a full keyboard. Let’s face it you cannot edit long blocks of code or URLs with default touch screen keyboard. So, I downloaded A.I. Keyboard Free.

This keyboard allows for the most important thing needed to navigate source code. Arrow Keys. I know that does not sound like much. But, I have issues with touch devices to going to the spot that I clicked in the URL or in a paragraph.

The keyboard also offers keys to undo and redo text or cut and paste items, use extended symbols, and allow the user to adjust the keyboard size to that which best fits your typing.

SVN – OASVN Free

I will admit there are not a lot of choices for SVN on Android. But, OASVN does a good job for when you are out of the office.

To down load your repository you just need to fill out a few form fields. Set the path where you want to store everything on your mobile device. Then you are ready to check out.

The editor – DroidEdit Free

I needed an application that would do more than a simple text edit. DroidEdit does syntax highlighting, undo, and redo. As an added bonus you open file from the local path, Dropbox, and Box.

When opening a document you can have the application prompt you to select the encoding. This is helpful when working with document such as XML that require UTF-8 encoding.

SSH – ConnectBot

I use a Linux server to host and test my sites. So, I need to be able to SSH to my servers and update the local SVN repository. ConnectBot allows me to that.

Browsers – Firefox,Google Chrome,Dolphin,Opera, etc.

There are several browsers these days for Android. Each behaves and renders things a little differently. So, you will need to find the one that best fits you testing and development needs.

For my sites I like to use Dolphin. It seems to render more like a desktop browser. It allows you to toggle the User Agent between Android, Desktop, iPhone, iPad, and Custom triggering sites to load different versions or a web page. Not all sites will load correctly in Dolphin. This is because of developers limiting what browsers are support on their sites. Just another reason to test things in various browsers and on different devices/platforms.

For those of you that do not know, “Redmine is a flexible project management web application. Written using the Ruby on Rails framework, it is cross-platform and cross-database.

Redmine is open source and released under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2 (GPL).”

We are using the TurnkeyLinux version of Redmine which allows us to run a pre-built Virtual Machine image.

It works pretty good right out the box. One of the nice features is being able to run Subversion (SVN). Allowing you to version control, archive and back up your code.

To tie a project into SVN you need to manually set a few images in the web interface.

Log into Redmine via web interface

1. Create/edit a project
2. Go to “Repository” tab
   • Select SCM as Subversion
   • file:///srv/repos/svn/{PROJECT NAME}
   • Create a Login
   • Create a Password
3. Click Save

Next you will need to log into Redmine server via SSH and complete the following steps.

1. Create a folder to store the new repository:

   mkdir /srv/repos/svn/{PROJECT NAME}

2. Create the repository.

   svnadmin create /srv/repos/svn/{PROJECT NAME}

3. If need to you can verify the repository with the following line of code.

   svnadmin verify /srv/repos/svn/{PROJECT NAME}

4. Edit the configuration file for the repository.

   nano /srv/repos/svn/{PROJECT NAME}/conf/svnserve.conf

5. Unhide the following items:

   anon-access = read

   auth-access = write

   password-db = passwd

6. Save file
7. Edit the password file to mamange user names and passwords

   nano /srv/repos/svn/{PROJECT NAME}/conf/passwd

8. When finished adding the user accounts save the file and exit the editor
9. You may need to restart service/server

   touch /etc/init.d/svnserve

Finally connect to the Repository via tortoiseSVN

1. Use tortoiseSVN “repo browser” to connect to svn://{IP ADDRESS}/svn/{PROJECT NAME}
2. Add the following folders:
   • branches
   • trunk
   • tags

3. Set folder on development machine.

I had a posting on my old blog about Portable Apps and want to talk about them for those of you that do not know what they are.

Basically Portable Apps allow users to take some of their favorite apps with them where ever they go. For instance I installed the portable apps to my iPod, which I can use as a portable hard drive for backup.

I get calls from people all the time that need help fixing their computers. To avoid downloading software to install on a clients machine. I simple connect my iPod to their computer, run the Portable Apps menu, and now have access to all my applications. I can scan for viruses, trojans, malware and spyware. Check hard drives for bad sectors, recover deleted files, and defrag. Additional apps allow me to packet sniff network traffic, surf the internet, make Skype calls, manage passwords, edit and browse the photos. And if you really need to there a ton of games.

These are some of my day-to-day apps. But there are tons more at PortableApps.com

• Fire Fox – Web browser
• Google Chrome – Web browser
• Opera – Web browser
• FileZilla – FTP Client
• Mozilla Thunderbird – Email Client
• Pidgin – Chat with AOL, MSN, Yahoo, etc.
• PuTTY – telnet and SSH client
• OpenOffice – word processor, spreadsheet, presentations with Microsoft compatibility
• LibreOffice Portable – word processor, spreadsheet, presentations with excellent compatibility
• ClamWin Portable – Antivirus
• Eraser Portable – securely delete files and data
• KeePass Password Safe – Secure, easy-to-use password manager
• Spybot – Search & Destroy – Spyware detection and removal
• 7-Zip – File archiver and compressor
• CrystalDiskInfo – disk health monitoring tool
• Disk Cleaner – cache, temp file and history cleaner
• Smart Defrag – disk defragmentation and optimization
• TeamViewer – remote PC support and screen-sharing
• Toucan – backup, sync and encrypt for advanced users
• VirtuaWin – virtual desktop manager
• Wise Registry Cleaner – registry cleaner and optimizer
• Wise Data Recovery – data and file recovery
• Notepad++ – A full-featured text editor with syntax highlighting