Tech notes

Android tablet (Nexus 10)

• Astro file manager. Good for finding downloads and other things.
• Kindle for Android. Reads pdfs too.
• SSHDroid. Useful SSH server. Good help page.
• Android terminal emulator. Works as advertised, but connecting through ssh is easier.
• Firefox beta for Android. Click on "awesome bar" to get bookmarks. Sync works.

Three ways to get pdfs:

1. Download from Firefox. (Not clear how I did this, but it sometimes works.)
2. Using sftp from another computer, through wireless. This requires determining the locak IP address of the tablet, which is listed in SSHDroid. (Once you start SSHDroid, it will run in the background if you use the home button to get out of it.)
3. Best of all, use simple-mtpfs (Fedora RPM exists) to mount the tablet on another computer. Make a mountpoint on your desktop or laptop, such as "tablet", an empty directory. Use the usb connector to connect the tablet to this computer. Then say
   simple-mtpfs tablet
   And tablet is now a directory of what you need on the tablet. You can cp into it or out of it.

To read pdfs, use Astro file manager to find sdcard/Download, which is where they should be. Then click on the one you want to read. It gives me the options of using Kindle or a built-in pdf reader. I like Kindle better, so I've chosen it as the default (and I haven't even tried a book yet).

To read Google books with text-to-speech, you need to go to Settings/Accessibility, and then turn on "Talkback" by clicking it and then clicking the "OFF" button in the upper right (which makes it go "ON"). Now everything talks, but Google books do too. It seems you have to reverse this process if you want it to shut up. It helped to make an icon for Settings in my desktop. The Kindle reader does not talk.

To read pdfs out loud, I spent a few dollars on ezpdf. With the configuration, I changed the default directory to Download, which is where I had all my pdfs. To get it to work, I had to turn on Talkback, as in the last paragraph. (More soon.)