Nexus USB OTG (On The Go)

USB OTG on Android devices

Sandisk Dual USB Drive

So last week I got a new Toy, a SanDisk Dual USB Drive (http://www.sandisk.com/products/usb/dualdrive/).
The drive is available on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Android-Smartphone-Tablet-SDDD-032G-G46/dp/B00HR78S2Q

The product itself is a great idea, a Flash Drive for the computer AND mobile devices however, you should take notice that only android devices supporting OTG are compatible.
Sandisk has offered a partial list on their site, My Nexus devices were not on that list.

Inserting the USB Drive to the devices, I could get the drive to be visible.
Sandisk offers supporting software for the devices called "SanDisk Memory zone" free on Google play.
I tried installing the app but it didn't help accessing the drive.


Of course I checked Google for the issue for both my Nexus 5 and nexus 7 and results were not conclusive.
Some sites said that the Nexus devices supported OTG Some said they dont and others said you need to root the devices and some had other work a rounds.

Nexus 5 with Sandisk Dual USB Drive

Nexus 7 with Sandisk Dual USB Drive

How to Use USB OTG In Any Nexus Without Rooting

Ok its very simple.
All I did was download ES File Explorer from Google play (its free), link.
Notice the USB2002 option on the bottom left.

Thats it, No rooting, No app buying.
Checked and working on both Nexus 7 and Nexus 5.

Enjoy.

Free mongoDB course

A while back I finished a MongoDB course from MongoDB University. I took it out of curiosity and for fun. MongoDB offer a selection of courses that are available on-line for free. I attended the "MongoDB For Developers" course, which I recommend for developers starting out with MongoDB.
Visit http://education.mongodb.com/ to start out.

A bit about Mongo

MongoDB is a cross-platform document-oriented database system.
Basically that means that you can setup MongoDB on Windows, Linux Mac or Solaris.
MongoDB is document since it works with JSON like documents.

JSON Sample

{"menu": {
  "id": "file",
  "value": "File",
  "popup": {
    "menuitem": [
      {"value": "New", "onclick": "CreateNewDoc()"},
      {"value": "Open", "onclick": "OpenDoc()"},
      {"value": "Close", "onclick": "CloseDoc()"}
    ]
  }
}}

As you can see, JSON is a text based document, readable that contains arrays and key-value pairs.

Some things you should know before talking about MongoDB.

1. Its a NoSQL database. the No stands for Not Only !!!
2. Mongo comes from humongous, and it can be.
3. Its easy to start out with and one ban can also accomplish complex problems.
4. MongoDB has been adopted by a number of major websites and services, including eBay, Foursquare, SourceForge, and The New York Times and many more : http://www.mongodb.org/about/production-deployments/