You really don't need the ridiculous USB wire or deal with the fact that the transformer (TF101) simply refuses to mount without fuss on either Linux or windows. It prompts you to install some Asus sync utility that I absolutely don't want to. Turns out there are even more ways to share files between your Asus transformer and your linux laptop.

I found WebSharing Lite File/Media Sync a while back

After installing the WebSharing Lite File/Media Sync, you just connect your android device to your wireless network, start the application and press start. It gives you an IP and port address. Something like: 10.0.0.6:2112/ It also gives you an "owner's password" - a random alphanumeric string.

You use your browser on your laptop to browse to this address. If you want file edit access, you input the password at the prompt. And that's it. You can upload or download files - as fast as your wireless modem is able to allow - in my case 54 MB/s.

This is even simpler than the earlier methods and seems to be secure since there is no external access and everything is limited to the internal loop behind your wireless router.

Now that this is sorted, wonder what the next mountain will be... rooting or maybe nothing because that's all I use the tablet for, reading and more reading. Rooting holds its charm but I am not entirely clear what benefits I will get from rooting the tablet right now.

How could I have ever forgotten this?? I completely went over the line this past week. I could have done with a dose of calmness. :/

And of course


:(

After so long...

(e:Paul)'s comments can sometimes act like insidious little nanoparticles that eat away at your trust of non-transparent pieces of software like only nanoparticles can. And if you didn't know already, the (e:Paul)-nanoparticular frequency is especially persuasive.

So I hunted around again to find an alternative solution and found this brilliant extension to the solution I found earlier for transferring files from android to linux. Turns out it can work both ways and quite securely here:


The method uses the inherent capacity of the android device (in my case, Nexus One, Nexus S and Asus TF101) to act as a wireless hotspot and be an FTP server over this self-generated wireless. Any laptop can connect to this android-device generated wireless and access all the files on the android device -or just swap files back and forth. So it's like a private wireless party! You don't need to have an internet or 3G/4G/LTE phone-data connection.

I like this method infinitely more. And I am betting (e:Paul) would approve. :)

So the steps (these are for my reference just in case the original link above vanishes for some reason):

On your android device:

• Go to Settings > Wireless & Networks > Tethering & Portable hotspot

• Turn on the portable Wi-Fi hotspot.

• Configure this Wi-Fi hotspot (Give it a wacky name and a secure password - it's going to be visible to your building mates, why not send them a message?) If you want them to share your enthusiasm for dry PDFs or perhaps dodgy videos, you can even make it open and unsecure.

• Install the Wifi FTP transfer application I talked about in (e:tinypliny,56176) and turn it on.

• Now go to you linux machine, connect to the wifi spot generated by the android device

• Pull up a console. Type

Route

Something like this will come up:


At this point, my laptop and android device were not connected to the internet; just to each other. So the 192.168.43.0 is the IP of my laptop and the 192.168.43.1 is the gateway of the Wifi spot generated by the transformer (or any android device).

• Open up Nautilus > File > connect to server > type in the address of the server as 192.168.43.1 (the gateway) and the port (2121 in that wifi app on my android device). Input the password and username that you set up for the Wifi FTP service on the android device

• et voila. The android device turns up as just another folder on your laptop. You can transfer files between your asus transformer (or any android device) and laptop just like you would between any two folder.

If I can do this, you can too. Say yes to transparency. Say no to frustrations of the USB not mounting on linux (or windows) for the asus transformer without complicated methods that may or may not work.

This is an easier method than setting up own server and hoping that it would work well but as (e:Paul) pointed out in the comments, it's also somewhat non-transparent. Why do you need to go to an external site ez.dropper.co and get a code? What other data does this application collect from your android device? The answers are floating in the wind and possibly in the developer's mind.

---

et voila EDIT

---

The developers frank and informative responses to these answers
are in (e:tinypliny,56245)

---

Here's how to use EZ Drop (File Sync) to share files between your linux laptop and android device:

Install EZ Drop (File Sync) from Google Play here:

on your android device.

Go to ez.dropper.co/ to get your code (from your linux desktop browser).

Fire up the now installed EZ Drop (File Sync) in your android device.

Input the code from ez.dropper.co/ in your android device.

An interface to transfer files appears in your browser at ez.dropper.co/ after you input the code in your android device.

You can drag and drop the files you want to share there.

The files you share get saved in the download folder in your android device.

Navigate to those files using ES Explorer - another awesome application from the Google Play Store.

That's it. No more struggles with FTP/HTTP servers on this linux machine and bemoaning that the ASUS transformer does not mount as a USB. It doesn't matter anymore.I found another method after some searching that also works very well. More in the next post: (e:tinypliny,56232)