USB Tethering: Mac and Android

I long ago discovered that my Macbook Pro doesn't play well with repeaters. It will connect without problem to the main router but, if it needs to connect via a repeater, then IP address conflicts arise and connectivity is lost. This was the problem in my bedroom but I overcame it by making use of the Ethernet port on my repeater. Once I connected the laptop to the repeater via an Ethernet cable, there was no problem. 

Recently however, my granddaughter was having buffering problems when watching Netflix over WiFi on her iPad Pro. I gave the repeater to her, connected her to an Ethernet cable via a hub and all was well. For her, that is, not for me. I was very quickly confronted with my old problem again. However, I had my Android phone and thought that the solution would be to tether the laptop to my phone via Bluetooth. The Macbook was having none of that. No problem I thought. I have a USB cable so I'll tether via that. No luck.

A little investigation led me to a site run by Joshua White and an app called HoRNDIS-9.2.pkg (46919 bytes) that I downloaded to my laptop and installed. I restarted my laptop and connected to my phone via USB and I'm typing happily away creating this post. 

No help of course from Apple popped up at the top of the search results but at least I'm connected now. I haven't tried watching Netflix or similar yet, in order to test the speed of the connection. I'll do that later and add to this post if there any problems. On his website, Joshua explains the technicalities of how the app works.

I still don't know why the bluetooth tethering didn't work. Perhaps there's a similar program that needs to be downloaded for that to work as well. For the moment, I'm just happy that I'm connected. Perhaps the motto of all this is indeed that CABLE IS STABLE.

Symbolab

I've just had a look at a website called Symbolab that offers a many tools for the mathematics student and even the chemistry student. I tested it out with the following rather difficult integral:

I was impressed with the step-by-step solution provided for the problem. It was quite thorough. It seems to be largely free, although there is a modestly priced paid option, and there is both an Android and iOS app that I'll download and test out. It seems a worthy competitor to WolframAlpha that doesn't offer free, step-by-step solutions on its website or apps.

I was made aware of the site thanks to Richard Byrne's tweet:

https://twitter.com/rmbyrne/status/775696157171253248

I used to follow this guy but hadn't been doing so over the past year since I retired from full-time teaching. However, I reconnected yesterday and the reconnection is already paying benefits. I've opened a free account using my Facebook login.

UPDATE: having now downloaded the Android app, I've found that the step-by-step solutions are only available with a one-off payment of $9.99 (US dollars presumably) which is a lot more than WolframAlpha is asking. The iOS app is the same except that it wants $10.99. Consequently, I've uninstalled both the Android and iOS apps and will simply use the desktop version while it still provides the steps for free. The web version is still limited in various ways. For example, the full range of practice questions on various topics is only available via a subscription. 

WolframAlpha

For the PRO version of the desktop WolframAlpha, there is a charge $6.99 per month (on a month by month basis) and I'm not sure whether the quote is for United States or Australian dollars. However, the mobile version of WolframAlpha seems to offer some, perhaps all, of the features of the desktop PRO version for a one-off cost of A$4.99. Whether it's totally equivalent to the PRO version or not I'm not sure but it certainly provides the step-by-step solutions that the former offers.

Anyway, I've made the mobile purchase and am experimenting with it. I tried the step-by-step solution to integrating ln(x^2+1) and it's displayed in the mobile app but I can't see how to copy it. Screenshots can of course be taken and this is what I've done below. The result is OK I guess.

Remix OS

I'll kickstart this blog again with some information about Remix OS that I was reading about today. To quote from this source:

Remix OS, the Android based operating system aimed at improving the productivity of its users, is set to be made free to everyone by its developers at Jide. Starting January 12, anyone who wants to try out the Alpha of the unique OS, will be able to do so without being charged a penny.

It can be installed on a USB stick but I'm not sure if it will run under VirtualBox. However, I can test things out when I download it. It's important that I play around with such things or else my limited computer skills will atrophy even further.

This is the site where the OS should be downloadable from when it's made available: http://www.jide.com/en/remixos