Transfering Data in the Field with Android (Media Card to Hard Drive)

I wasted pretty much a whole day figuring out how to transfer data from a CF card to a USB stick and/or hard drive using only Android.  I say “wasted” because I was trying all these things that in the end I found out I *DIDN’T NEED TO MESS WITH!*

All the research I had been doing regarding “dumping cards in the field using Android” (simply transferring data from a CF or SD card to a hard drive for back up and card reuse) led me to believe this was a very involved process requiring special cables, apps, altering the functionality of your device, etc., etc.

Almost none of that is true, or at least, it’s not ANYWHERE near as big a deal as people would have you to believe.

Long story short, if you plug a powered hub with a CF reader and USB ports (I’m using the Unitek USB3.0+Card Reader :: Y-3123) into your device via an OTG cable, it will probably work right off the bat (wish I’d have just tried that first!).

So why did this take me all day?

I thought I was being all clever rooting a Galaxy S5, installing CyanogenMod 12.1, and then downloading various apps that in combination would allow the transfer happen.  I thought I needed [root]StickMount. I even purchased the Pro version.  But at this point, I really have no idea what StickMount is even for.  Your device will likely read a USB stick as is.  There is no need for this app (or rooting your device for that matter).

In the end, the stock Samsung TouchWiz Lollipop OS worked great.  The stock OS on my LG Gpad (Kit Kat) also worked great.  In fact, with the Lollipop on the S5 (from Verizon), there is a really nice little area in “My Files” that allows me to easily pick between USB Storage A (the CF card) and USB Storage B (a USB drive)… though “My Files” doesn’t allow me to see my 750GB NTFS drive (see below for that bonus action).

This set up also works like a champ with my stock LG Gpad 8.3 (Verizon Kit Kat).

This means BOTH my devices, as stock (Lollipop and/or Kit Kat), are able to transfer data from a card to a thumb drive (either FAT32 or exFAT) via a hub (you may need a powered hub, depending on how much power your device puts out and how much power your card and USB stick require).

Here’s the bonus: if I use the Paragon Technologies GmbH plugin for Total Commander, my Galaxy S5 and LG Gpad 8.3 WILL allow me to read/write to/from the 750GB NTFS drive and it doesn’t even require root access to the device (very cool)!  I have found that I actually need to install two plug-ins for Total Commander to make an NTFS hard drive, a card, and a USB stick all work together.  You need USB Stick Plugin-TC by Ferenc Hechler to use both NTFS and FAT32/exFAT.  For some reason, if you install the NTFS plug-in, Total Commander treats everything plugged into the hub as NTFS, thus non-NTFS drives (CF card and USB drive) are not recognized.  Installing the Stick Plug-in restores Total Commander’s ability to see the card and USB stick with the NTFS drive.

If your device is rooted, there is actually a patch that someone on the XDA Developers forums has come up with that will allow Android to read/write NTFS, but the installation is a little more involved (dropping files and modules into particular directories on your device), so going the Total Commander route is just a little easier in my opinion.

All said and done, the actual data transfer takes a while, but by transferring directly from card to hard drive (or USB stick) you eliminate the extra step that a lot of people are going through when they transfer from a CF reader to their device’s SD Card and then back out to a Portable Hard Drive (though if your device’s SD card is big enough, leaving a copy of the files on the SD card offers additional back up).

On my LG Gpad 8.3 tablet I dumped 9GB from a 16GB SanDisk Extreme (160MB/s) CF card containing RAW files and .MOV files (from a Canon 7D) to a USB 3.0 (not that it matters –the connection is USB 2, thus that’s the speed limit) 16GB Transcend USB stick in roughly 23 minutes (not awesome, but probably fast enough to transfer while you’re shooting another couple of cards).  Later that day, I transferred a full 16GB CF card (600x Transcend) to a 5400RPM 2.5” portable HD formatted exFAT, and it actually took less than 23 minutes.

To reiterate: I am confirming that with both the Samsung Galaxy S5 and the LG Gpad 8.3 I can use a powered hub to plug in a 16 GB CF card (FAT32), a 32GB USB drive (exFat), and a 750GB external NTFS hard drive… all at the same time… and transfer data between all three devices (not to mention the device they are all plugged into).

Furthermore (and obviously the easiest way to go), if you format an external hard drive using exFAT or FAT32, your Android device will almost certainly allow you to dump data from a media card to the hard drive without making ANY modifications and by simply using the stock file explorer on your device!

I will also state (though I have no good reason for this), the transfer seems to work most consistently, without glitches, without having to try several times, on Kit Kat (with my Gpad).

While we’re on the topic, let’s explore this magical “OTG cable.”  It’s a cable that has a male micro USB B to go into your device, and the other end has a female type A USB.  That’s it.  The only thing special about this “OTG” cable is that pins 4 and 5 are jumpered.  In fact, as shown in this Makezine article, if you’ve got a micro USB cable and a USB 2.0 cable lying around, you can splice them together to make your own OTG, just be sure to jumper pins 4 and 5 (because: “When the sense pin is connected to ground, the USB OTG device attached to the cable enters host mode. If the sense pin is left in its usual disconnected state, the USB OTG device will remain in slave mode”).

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ACL Settings in Thecus NAS Prevent Connections

Yesterday I set up protections on shared folders in my Thecus N5550 NAS using the ACL settings (you can set permissions for specific users created in your NAS GUI).  Today I tried to access these folders on my NAS, and Windows 7 wouldn’t let me!  There was no option to enter the login credentials I created for the folders yesterday, and no way to make the NAS recognize my Windows credentials.

I searched for a while and found this (mysterious and not very solid) answer on the Thecus Forums:

1. Opened Network and Sharing Center
2. Opened Change Advanced Sharing....
3. Changed the last setting to "Use user accounts and passwords..."
4. Closed that and changed my active network type from "home" to "work"

Not sure exactly why it worked, but it did. Now I can enter my username (no need to add @thecus.com after the username) and pw to browse my ACL protected folder.

Thanks to user jonathan.morris for posting!  I too am not sure why this works, as I have not set up the ACL on the folders with my Windows credentials, nor did I enter the NAS user credentials I set up yesterday, but suddenly there is no issue accessing the NAS Share Folders directly via Explorer (which has me wondering how effective the ACL setting could be since I’m accessing the folders without entering any user/pass).

Windows advises that you should let it monitor and control your home network, but if I can’t USE my home network to access my NAS, Windows certainly isn’t doing its job correctly.

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Best Wifi Streaming Music Setup

This blog gets a lot of hits for people looking for the best and easiest way to stream music over wifi, so I thought I’d revisit what I’m using these days.

My goal was to get the cheapest and easiest set up, so that I can use it, my wife can use it, and guests can use it. It needed to be as easy to use and accessible as possible. I also wanted to be able to stream music to existing audio equipment that I already own. I’ve got a beautiful 1960’s Clairtone G2 that I love using (vinyl is great, but not always practical),

as well as a Carver M-400t cube with a Carver C-2 preamp running into some Magnaplanar MG-I IMP’s from the early 70’s.

Of course these systems both sound better with vinyl or CD’s running “real” audio (not compressed MP3’s), but when I’m having a party or messing around the house and don’t want to be manning the music at all times, it’s nice to be able to just let HAL DJ.

I searched and searched and searched for wifi audio streaming hardware under $50, but to no avail.   I just wanted a box to plug into my stereo that would stream music from my computer.  A used Airport Express from Ebay is definitely the way to go.  You can easily find them for around $40, and all you’re using is the audio, so you can use older versions without any trouble.  (Added bonus: with most AirPort Expresses, you could even hook up a USB printer to have WiFi printing at a central location in your home).

While I know there will be people who decry using iTunes as the main player in the set up, it’s free and while it has it’s draw-backs seems to be the easiest thing going.  Also, most other software developers allow for interfacing or at least exporting/importing data that will work with an iTunes core.

I like iTunes as the center of the system, because it makes it super easy to choose various speakers (zones) around the house.  You just go to the bottom right corner and select the speakers to which you want to stream from the drop down.  You can stream to just one or two, or all of them.  Simply select “multiple speakers” and the dialogue box below pops up.

The more speakers you stream, the longer it takes for iTunes to find them all and “get going” when you hit play (still under a few seconds with several speakers), but that’s a small price to pay for this simple solution to multiple zones.

Another huge benefit to a system with iTunes at the core is that, anyone with iTunes on their computer, an iPhone, or a compatible Android app can control the music play (if I let them), and they can even stream their own music to my system.

Obviously iPhones can work the system without a hitch, but if you’re on PC or Android, it’s still easy as pie.

For my Android device remote, I was originally using Jeff Sharkey’s TunesRemote, but he’s since stopped creating updates (not to mention you had to pair it EVERY TIME you used it, and that was a major pain in the ass).  But not to worry, as there is a dedicated community who has taken over the app (now called TunesRemote+), and they’re doing a bang up job!  The app stays paired to iTunes forever (I paired it once, and have never had to do it again), and it even works with some other programs like MediaMonkey and Songbird.  It is made to act exactly like the iTunes remote, so there are a few apps out there that might be more robust (edit playlists from remote, etc.), but this is the best and easiest free Android iTunes remote I’ve found.

You will definitely want (need) to download AirPort utility from the Apple website, as it is what will get your computer gelling with the Airports around the house.  It’s intuitive and easy to use, so you shouldn’t have any trouble getting up and running once you install and run the app and have it find all your Airports.

And those who simply refuse to use iTunes need not fret.  You can still use this setup by utilizing AirFoil ($25, both Mac and PC), which basically hi-jacks your Apple Airports and allows you to stream audio to them from anything on your computer!

Rock on.

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Using Picasa with Multiple Computers

UPDATE (1-19-12): I’m going to leave this post up, but feel free to completely ignore it, as much more information has recently come to light because of some nice e-mails from a guy named Don.  It would be best to check out his lengthy explanation of the current situation with Picasa on multiple computers here.  The complexity of the situation has me simply wanting to find a different solution for organizing and sharing my photos.  Ugh.

 

For being such a pioneer of the web/cloud, Google has created a photo solution (Picasa) that is mind-bogglingly single PC based.  Even the “sync to web” feature only allows uploading of photos to the web… it’s barely “syncing” anything at all!  Your PC simply remembers what photos were uploaded and will update the photos you uploaded when you make changes on your computer.  They only recently made changes that will ask you if you want to update your computer if you delete a photo in your web album (before, it didn’t even do that!).

And if you store photos on multiple machines, you’re really screwed.  That is the impetus for this post.

Picasa uses .ini files to keep track of changes made to your photos (this is definitely a good thing, as it employs non-destructive editing, i.e. the originals are not altered).  As a result, changes you make to photos on one of your computers will not show up on another computer.  Even worse, if you have “sync to web” enabled on multiple computers, you sync your photos between computers, and you tick photos already ticked on another computer for upload to the web, you are uploading multiple copies of the same photo (then try figuring out which photo to delete so as to not REALLY confuse Picasa).  Not only that, but changes you have made to your photos are not displayed on the other machines, as they are tracked only in the .ini files.

You can try syncing the .ini files between computers, but this only leads to more problems down the road, and you can never be totally sure you’re actually looking at the most recent changes on the computer you’re using.

This post at Cloud Ave. is a decent how-to solution, but is still not a great solution to the overall problem (as there are pitfalls all along the way and it doesn't really allow for mirroring your photo collection on multiple machines).  It employs a workaround in which one computer will act as the server, and your other computers/user profiles must feed from that main computer on your network.  But what that means is that if you are out in the world and make updates or changes on your laptop (not the “main computer” at home), it will freak out the system once you get back to home base.

While the Cloud Ave. solution is not a total solution, it does illustrate how incredibly simple the solution to the problem is.  If Picasa stored your .ini files in the cloud (in your online web albums/profile) or at least synced to them there, the problem would be COMPLETELY solved.

I have NO IDEA why Google has not implemented this, as there are obviously thousands of people who use Picasa across multiple machines.  Get to it, Picasa team at Google.

Meanwhile, I'm thinking Microsoft Live Mesh (or possibly a Drop Box folder, though Googling the issue seems to turn up a plethora of problems) is the best current solution.  If I use Live Mesh to sync my master "Pictures" albums on multiple machines, Live Mesh keeps everything (including Picasa .ini files) synced.  The problem is that you have to either sync ALL your photos (which for me is terabytes of data), or set up syncing for every single sub-folder in your Pictures library (which means hundreds of folders).  Since I don't want every single picture I own stored on my laptop, I have to go the "set up every sub-folder route," and Live Mesh is horrible for addressing hundreds (even thousands) of sub-folders, since Live Mesh lists every single synced folder in one long list and has no way to group or categorize things.  Using Live Mesh also means syncing everything across the web (not your local connection), so it's incredibly slow (you can mitigate this a bit by making sure your folders are first synced across all your machines before taking Live Mesh live).

I wish I had a perfect solution to share here, but for the time being, it looks like there isn't one.  Blurg.

Create Wake On LAN Button to Remotely Wake Computer

I’ve got my MEDIA tower set to sleep when it’s not in use.  To avoid having to physically go wake up the computer by hitting a button or moving the mouse, I’ve set the machine to Wake on LAN, which means I can wake the computer remotely by sending a command from another machine.  The machine being waked up (the MEDIA tower) needs to be physically attached to an ethernet cable (LAN connection) for this to happen.  You can, however, send the wake up commands wirelessly.

I used basically two sources to find this information.  For configuring my WOL set up, I used this link.  Note that all the firewall information is only necessary in order to use the testing programs to make sure you’re set up right.  You shouldn’t need to set firewall exceptions to simply send the wake command.

To create my WOL desktop shortcut, I used this link (this link also contains all the information from the previous link).

Basically, you need to set your BIOS on the target machine (the one you’re waking up) to allow Wake on LAN (settings will depend on your specific MOBO).  Then you need to download a tiny little program called MC-WOL from Matcode.com.  This little executable is what allows you to send a “magic packet” to wake the remote computer.

Find the MAC address of the machine you want to wake up (type getmac in a command line), and use it with the MC-WOL executable (type MC-WOL.exe and then the mac address from a command line).

[a command line means from a DOS window: type “cmd” from the Windows icon at the bottom left corner of your screen and a DOS window will pop up]

To create a shortcut for WOL, use the command you used to Wake your PC and copy it into notepad.

Example:     C:\mc-wol.exe 01:2C:21:E3:D8:5F

Save the text document and then change the .txt extension for that file to .bat.  You can now double click this file to run the Wake On LAN request for the target computer.

p.s. I first set up this button because I didn’t think I could cut/paste into a command line window, but then remembered if you right-click on the window border and select Edit>Paste from the drop-down you can paste into the command line (so you don’t have to manually type the MAC address).

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Working with Networked iTunes Libraries and Music

My music library has reached a size that’s not feasible to keep on my laptop, so I’m now accessing my iTunes library from a central MEDIA tower.  I have an Airport hooked up to my main house stereo, so I can select that unit from the speaker selection in iTunes no matter which computer I’m using.  We’re also sharing all the iTunes libraries in the house (my laptop, the media tower, my wife’s computer, etc.).

I use the shared (MEDIA tower) library when I’m home.  This means when I travel, I need to use a different library (one that accesses only the songs that are physically stored on my laptop).

You can alter the iTunes library you open by holding down the shift key when opening iTunes (you must keep holding down the shift key while clicking the iTunes.exe icon and keep the shift key held down until you see the select iTunes library dialogue).

 

Here’s one of the more important things I’ve found when using this setup:

When adding files/folders to your main (MEDIA tower) iTunes library, make SURE you add the songs by their NETWORK path (not the media computer’s hard drive path).  This way, when you open the iTunes library from another computer, it will start looking for the files via the correct computer name, not the computer from which you opened iTunes (localhost and hard drive path).  This just makes things a little easier when opening files from various (multiple) computers.

If you’ve got \\MEDIA\ set in your iTunes Media folder location under iTunes’ preferences, this should happen automatically.  But I’ve found that sometimes iTunes will still use the hard (localhost) hard drive file path.

For instance, if I’ve got three computers named MEDIA, DEATHSTAR, and CARL, and my main file repository is on MEDIA (this is where the main iTunes library that I open from other computers exists), when I add a folder or file to the MEDIA library, I need to be sure the file or folder is being added from the network not he hard drive path.  If the file path is using the hard drive path on the computer, change the file path to \\MEDIA\ instead of E:\Music\ (for instance).  This way, when I open the library on DEATHSTAR or CARL, iTunes won’t try to look for the files from localhost\\E:\ and will instead start from the network path \\MEDIA\.

A few people have asked why I would want to open the actual library file instead of just playing from the shared library.  The reason is because I want to make any changes I make to the songs, ratings, playlists, etc. show up in the main iTunes library file (so the changes are reflected on all computers).

The only major downside I’ve found so far with this method is that it can take iTunes a LONG time to “checking iTunes library” when opening the networked iTunes library.

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