Ask Slashdot: Scripting-Friendly Smartphones? 197
Posted
by
timothy
from the also-must-have-infinite-battery-life-and-candy dept.
from the also-must-have-infinite-battery-life-and-candy dept.
An anonymous reader writes "I am choosing a smartphone for work, moving up from a long history of just-a-phone phones. This coincides with moving into an environment where I will have a desktop machine in my office, rather using my laptop — so I'll VPN in from home, and am looking forward to not trucking my laptop around everywhere. BUT ... this means I now won't have my laptop all the time. I have gotten used to scripting various little things that make my life easier, and would like to carry that over to the phone. For example, periodically check that a certain machine is online and backing things up the way it is supposed to; if the lab monitoring system sends me an email that the -80 freezer is up to -50, play a sound and run the vibrate system in a specific, arbitrarily chosen pattern; when I press this button, record an MP3, when I release it prep an email with it attached, that sort of thing. Does such a beast exist? Has anyone used one and if so what do you think? Bonus points if you know if I can use it with Rogers (Canadian wireless provider used by my workplace)." I've heard good things about (but never used) the payware Android app called Tasker; what other recommendations do you have for running the world from a smartphone?
Re:seriously? (Score:5, Funny)
Amidst the incoherent rambling I suspect, and look up to confirm yet again, that it is Timothy who has posted this trash. Is this the boss's son or something?
Re:seriously? (Score:0, Funny)
Your mom.
Re:An inherent limitation of the form factor? (Score:5, Funny)
every salaried job, that's what!
I've never been offered extra money to take 'pager duty' (as it was historically called). I hated it, I won't willingly do it again but its still the norm to pay one annual salary and still expect lots of 'free time' from your slaves. I mean employees. I did mean employees, really I did.
Re:An inherent limitation of the form factor? (Score:5, Funny)
A professional sysadmin on call should have multiple devices ready to roll, and not just depend on one dinky one.
There's a reason samurai had two swords, or cowboys carried a boot knife...
Exactly ... just in case they needed to stab a server ... or a user. ;-)
Re:An inherent limitation of the form factor? (Score:2, Funny)
but it sucks less than trying to use a Pad or Notebook on that shitty bus seats.
I suggest using toilet paper on shitty seats. Using a Pad or Notebook is gonna hammer the resale price.