11 Android tools for Web developers

Android mobile devices, while not typically thought of as places where development work gets done, can offer surprisingly useful apps to help developers get the job done

Web developer apps for your Android device
As Web developers, most of us love to stay connected to the Web. Now with the help of Android apps, developers can ply their craft on any mobile Android device. FTP, SSH, MySQL, code editors, plus much more are all at your fingertips. And while many of us wouldn't choose to use these tools throughout the whole workday, it's nice to know that they are there at the ready should you need to spring into action to save the proverbial day.

These apps are either altogether free or inexpensive and can save your skin should you find yourself cut off from a computer.

Hacker's Keyboard
This tool shows up on many mobile developer tool lists because many of the apps here work better with a traditional keyboard layout. For tasks like writing code, working with shell scripts or other command line tools, it's a big time saver and a must-have for the developer on the go.

Price: Free

ConnectBot SSH Client
Much like Putty for Windows, ConnectBot is a free open source app that allows users to connect to any Linux machine running an SSH client. This is a must-have for Linux administrators. Users can transfer files remotely and create remote telnet sessions. Pico and Vi to your heart's content.

Price: Free

AndFTP
Every Web developer needs to transfer files at some point. Maybe you want to upload pictures to your website from an event or grab data or a document on your Web server. It's no problem with AndFTP: You simply input your FTP settings, and you'll be transferring files in no time.

Price: Free

ES File Explorer File Manager
ES File Explorer provides users with an easy and intuitive way to browse through the files and folders on your Android device. The app makes renaming, deleting, or moving files and folders a snap. It provides Bluetooth sharing, Samba file-sharing via Wi-Fi, a baked in process/task killer, and built-in support for ZIP and RAR file types. It also offers cloud storage support for most major providers, such as Dropbox, Box.net, or Google Drive.

Price: Free

WebMaster's HTML Editor
This handy little HTML editor will make a great addition to your developer toolbox. It supports HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP. While you may be tempted to save some money here, you should spring for the full version, which allows for full preview and code support. For those looking for a free option give 920 Text Editor a try. While not as feature-rich as Webmaster's, it consistently gets good reviews and has been around for a while.

Price: $4.99

VT View Source
Ever need to see the code behind that Web page you're working on? Of course you do. Desktop browsers all have "view source" baked in, but what about when you are on your tablet or smartphone? VT View Source provides support to view HTML, CSS, JavaScript, or XML sources from Web pages or remote files. It provides code highlighting, line numbers, and text wrapping to fit your devices screen. Simply type or paste the URL, or location of your file, and this app will lift the veil on your Web pages to reveal their mysteries.

Price: Free

kWS - Android Web Server Pro
It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that Android is capable of running a Web server -- it's a Linux based OS after all. kWS - Android Web Server Pro is capable of implementing a Web server running HTTP 1.0 with basic and digest authentication and can support most file types.

Price:
kWS - Android Web Server Pro Free
kWS - Android Web Server Pro $1.99

Open source CMS tools
The following apps are a part of the many open source content management systems that have become a staple of Web publishers around the globe. Using these tools, users can create, edit, delete, and update content as well as receive notifications. You can view stats, manage comments, and run your digital world, all from your Android device.

WordPress
Price: Free

Drupal Editor
Price: Free

Joooid! Joomla for Android
Price: Free

Vcrox MySQL Client

Web developers on-the-go can connect to their remote MySQL databases wherever they have cell access and insert, edit, and delete table rows until the cows come home. Export your data to work on the desktop. Support is available for English and Spanish language users.

Price: Free

SQLTool Pro Database Editor
Do you need to manage a MySQL, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, Sybase ASE, MariaDB, Derby, or Oracle database from your Android device? Well, SQLTool Pro Database Editor stands at the ready. It supports SSH tunneling to connect, control, query, and manage several types of databases.

Price: $3.99

Google's Mobile App Analytics
With Google's app, users can track website data to improve ROI, improve search engine rankings, and identify and analyze audience and traffic issues. Relevant data includes audience acquisition and behavior, technology details, and keywords.

Price: Free

We're always interested in how you get the job done. Please tell us what Web development tools you use on your Android device.

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7 killer open source monitoring tools

Network and system monitoring is a broad category. There are solutions that monitor for the proper operation of servers, network gear, and applications, and there are solutions that track the performance of those systems and devices, providing trending and analysis. Some tools will sound alarms and notifications when problems are detected, while others will even trigger actions to run when alarms sound. Here is a collection of open source solutions that aim to provide some or all of these capabilities.

Cacti
Cacti is a very extensive performance graphing and trending tool that can be used to track just about any monitored metric that can be plotted on a graph. From disk utilization to fan speeds in a power supply, if it can be monitored, Cacti can track it -- and make that data quickly available.

Nagios
Nagios is the old guard of system and network monitoring. It is fast, reliable, and extremely customizable. Nagios can be a challenge for newcomers, but the rather complex configuration is also its strength, as it can be adapted to just about any monitoring task. What it may lack in looks it makes up for in power and reliability.

Icinga
Icinga is an offshoot of Nagios that is currently being rebuilt anew. It offers a thorough monitoring and alerting framework that’s designed to be as open and extensible as Nagios is, but with several different Web UI options. Icinga 1 is closely related to Nagios, while Icinga 2 is the rewrite. Both versions are currently supported, and Nagios users can migrate to Icinga 1 very easily.

NeDi
NeDi may not be as well known as some of the others, but it’s a great solution for tracking devices across a network. It continuously walks through a network infrastructure and catalogs devices, keeping track of everything it discovers. It can provide the current location of any device, as well as a history.

NeDi can be used to locate stolen or lost devices by alerting you if they reappear on the network. It can even display all known and discovered connections on a map, showing how every network interconnect is laid out, down to the physical port level.

Observium
Observium combines system and network monitoring with performance trending. It uses both static and auto discovery to identify servers and network devices, leverages a variety of monitoring methods, and can be configured to track just about any available metric. The Web UI is very clean, well thought out, and easy to navigate.

As shown, Observium can also display the physical location of monitored devices on a geographical map. Note too the heads-up panels showing active alarms and device counts.

Zabbix
Zabbix monitors servers and networks with an extensive array of tools. There are Zabbix agents for most operating systems, or you can use passive or external checks, including SNMP to monitor hosts and network devices. You'll also find extensive alerting and notification facilities, and a highly customizable Web UI that can be adapted to a variety of heads-up displays. In addition, Zabbix has specific tools that monitor Web application stacks and virtualization hypervisors.

Zabbix can also produce logical interconnection diagrams detailing how certain monitored objects are interconnected. These maps are customizable, and maps can be created for groups of monitored devices and hosts.

Ntop
Ntop is a packet sniffing tool with a slick Web UI that displays live data on network traffic passing by a monitoring interface. Instant data on network flows is available through an advanced live graphing function. Host data flows and host communication pair information is also available in real-time.

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