4 replies to this topic

[frax]

I am doing a little more work from home now, in the past few weeks. I don't have a powerful workstation at home, just my ultra portable laptop (I have a Dell XT tablet).

I kind of like sitting in the couch working, and I can use remote desktop to get into my workstation at the office (which is running Vista Ultimate 64-bit) for powerful tasks. Sitting in the couch is perfect for e-mail, web and programming - but for GIS and Illy/Carto work I kind of prefer to lean back a bit and rest one hand on the keyboard and the other on the mouse - the trackpad is not so good for that work (although using the digitizer on the screen with a finger can be very handy).

What we do have at home is a decently powerful desktop computer (for all-around home stuff), a keyboard and a mouse, and yesterday I got the idea that I should maybe look into getting a KVM switch (a box to use one keyboard/screen/mouse with multiple computers) with a docking station. I did some research, but I am not wild about the idea of having even more cables at home.

Then it struck me - I had looked at these KVM-like software before. These lets you share the keyboard and mouse (but not the screen) and easily switch between computers.

I first played with Synergy, which seemed to be cool, but I couldn't get it working properly with the desktop and my laptop. I also see that it hasn't been updated since 2006, which is an eternity for open source software! But then I found Input Director, which seems to work very well.

Pretty cool, if I may say so!

[peanut]

I used to use a KVM at the office.

I have monitors with two inputs so when I switched workstations on the kvm switch I also toggled the input on the monitors. Worked pretty well for me.

Nowadays I find it easier to just remote into the other machine so I don't use the kvm anymore.

Rich

[frax]

Nowadays I find it easier to just remote into the other machine so I don't use the kvm anymore.

Thanks, I didn't even think about that! Then I can leave my laptop on the coffee table, and sit at the desk for a bit (remoting in), when I need a change.

I still think Input Director has a place - for instance when I bring my laptop to the office - then I can just move the mouse over to do some small thing.

[Lui]

I vote for TightVNC. It is free, small, simple and you can run remote directx applications (Remote Desktop doesn't allow that).

Lui

[frax]

Lui, I use UltraVNC alot too, but the experience is nowhere near Remote Desktop - as far as I have seen. It was long time since I tried Tight VNC, but I doubt that it is faster. VNC consumes more cycles and bandwidth too (I think).