Controlling Your Linux System with a Smartphone
The most-used application I have built is a television remote control. We use the fantastic tvtime program to watch all our TV. The tvtime package includes the tvtime-command command that allows you to control every conceivable function of the running tvtime instance. For example, tvtime-command chan-up changes the channel up one increment. Full documentation can be found in the tvtime man page.
I used all the same techniques described earlier and built a full functioning remote shown in Figure 4.
Now friends and family can control the TV from the comfort of their very own smartphones. There are no more complaints about using our giant Bluetooth keyboard as a remote either. The kids simply can grab the closest iPod Touch, Palm Pre or whatever.
Smartphone technology is advancing extremely rapidly. Without modifying the phone, you can access almost any possible function on a remote computer through the built-in browser. Linux users are especially lucky. It doesn't take much effort to turn a Linux computer into a back end for a phone. Hopefully, this article inspires you to come up with your own unique and interesting uses.
Jamie Popkin lives in Lantzville, British Columbia, with his wife and four kids. He is a consultant specializing in geographic data portrayal on the Web. Recently, he has started developing for smartphones, utilizing modern Web/HTML5 technology. He can be reached via Twitter (@jamiepopkin) or e-mail (popkinj@littleearth.ca).
- « first
- ‹ previous
- 1
- 2
- 3
Today’s modular x86 servers are compute-centric, designed as a least common denominator to support a wide range of IT workloads. Those generic, virtualized IT workloads have much different resource optimization requirements than hyperscale and cloud applications. They have resulted in a “one size fits all” enterprise IT architecture that is not optimized for a specific set of IT workloads, and especially not emerging hyperscale workloads, such as web applications, big data, and object storage. In this report, you will learn how shifting the focus from traditional compute-centric IT architectures to an innovative disaggregated fabric-based architecture can optimize and scale your data center.
Sponsored by AMD
Built-in forensics, incident response, and security with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
Every security policy provides guidance and requirements for ensuring adequate protection of information and data, as well as high-level technical and administrative security requirements for a system in a given environment. Traditionally, providing security for a system focuses on the confidentiality of the information on it. However, protecting the data integrity and system and data availability is just as important. For example, when processing United States intelligence information, there are three attributes that require protection: confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
Learn more about catching the bad guy in this free white paper.
Sponsored by DLT Solutions
| Making Linux and Android Get Along (It's Not as Hard as It Sounds) | May 16, 2013 |
| Drupal Is a Framework: Why Everyone Needs to Understand This | May 15, 2013 |
| Home, My Backup Data Center | May 13, 2013 |
| Non-Linux FOSS: Seashore | May 10, 2013 |
| Trying to Tame the Tablet | May 08, 2013 |
| Dart: a New Web Programming Experience | May 07, 2013 |
- RSS Feeds
- Making Linux and Android Get Along (It's Not as Hard as It Sounds)
- New Products
- Drupal Is a Framework: Why Everyone Needs to Understand This
- A Topic for Discussion - Open Source Feature-Richness?
- Home, My Backup Data Center
- Validate an E-Mail Address with PHP, the Right Way
- New Products
- Developer Poll
- Tech Tip: Really Simple HTTP Server with Python
- git-annex assistant
20 min 41 sec ago - direct cable connection
43 min 11 sec ago - Agreed on AirDroid. With my
53 min 27 sec ago - I just learned this
57 min 37 sec ago - enterprise
1 hour 27 min ago - not living upto the mobile revolution
4 hours 19 min ago - Deceptive Advertising and
4 hours 54 min ago - Let\'s declare that you have
4 hours 55 min ago - Alterations in Contest Due
4 hours 56 min ago - At a numbers mindset, your
4 hours 57 min ago
Enter to Win an Adafruit Prototyping Pi Plate Kit for Raspberry Pi

It's Raspberry Pi month at Linux Journal. Each week in May, Adafruit will be giving away a Pi-related prize to a lucky, randomly drawn LJ reader. Winners will be announced weekly.
Fill out the fields below to enter to win this week's prize-- a Prototyping Pi Plate Kit for Raspberry Pi.
Congratulations to our winners so far:
- 5-8-13, Pi Starter Pack: Jack Davis
- 5-15-13, Pi Model B 512MB RAM: Patrick Dunn
- Next winner announced on 5-21-13!
Free Webinar: Linux Backup and Recovery
Most companies incorporate backup procedures for critical data, which can be restored quickly if a loss occurs. However, fewer companies are prepared for catastrophic system failures, in which they lose all data, the entire operating system, applications, settings, patches and more, reducing their system(s) to “bare metal.” After all, before data can be restored to a system, there must be a system to restore it to.
In this one hour webinar, learn how to enhance your existing backup strategies for better disaster recovery preparedness using Storix System Backup Administrator (SBAdmin), a highly flexible bare-metal recovery solution for UNIX and Linux systems.





Comments
Create .Xauthority file
Hi,
I really liked your article, I was trying it but there is no .Xauthority file in my home folder.
Can you guide me how to create it under ubuntu 10.10.
Thank You
Or, you could install webmin.
Or, you could install webmin.