Sunday Evening Vignettes
A few thoughts that are each too short to be their own post: Synergy, ZoneScreen and Stack Overflow
Synergy Still Rocks
I first mentioned Synergy back in December of 2005 – that’s a long time in “blog years!” I’ve been using it one and off ever since. Synergy is an open source product that allows you to easily control multiple computers from one keyboard and mouse.
Last week I added a big external monitor to my Eee netbook and then installed Synergy on it. The netbook was connected to my main machine via a VPN tunnel over wi-fi and yet the keyboard and mouse response was instantaneous and flawless. Awesome stuff!
If you have a couple (or more) machines on your desk that you want to control via one keyboard and mouse, you may want to check this freebie out.
ZoneScreen
Many moons ago I was looking for an alternative to MaxiVista. Specifically, I was looking for something that might work between multiple OS’s. Well, I never did turn up anything that fit the bill, but one commenter suggested I look at ZoneScreen. At that point I couldn’t actually get to the ZoneScreen site and tabled it (plus, like Windows, it is pretty much a Windows only option).
Both MaxiVista and ZoneScreen to allow a “secondary” machine to act as an additional monitor for a primary machine. I was thinking ZoneScreen would be cool to use with my home desktop and my trusty old ThinkPad 600e laptop. My thought was to let the 600e be a second monitor for my desktop.
While I got display mirroring to work, I haven’t had much luck in getting it to act as a second monitor. After scrolling down all the way on the ZoneScreen home, I found this note:
Display driver currently is not WHQL-signed. Debug mode is required to load unsigned kernel driver into Windows Vista x64 (details).
My home machine is currently Vista x64. This is on hold for the moment, but it is an intriguing way to get use out of an old laptop (or temporarily repurpose a not old laptop for that matter).
To be fair, I should mention that MaxiVista doesn’t dig Vista x64 either.
Stack Overflow and “Rack Overflow”
Stack Overflow is slick new site aimed at programmers. It’s sort of a mix between a wiki and forums and just about everything can be collaboratively edited (but it seems like most folks use it as a forum only…). While I’m not really in the coding business at the moment I have still found some very will written answers to some questions I had. There are some very smart folks stopping by.
The site is not, however, for general IT questions. The focus is supposed to be on programmers. According to the SO blog, however, there’ll be an IT Stack Overflow coming in March. Rumor has the name as “Rack Overflow”…
Honestly? I. Can’t. Wait.
If that has the sort of attention and folks that Stack Overflow gets it will be awesome. Heck, I’d probably repost Displaying A Maintenance Page there on the first day just to get more thoughts. And I have this gnarly little SQL Server Agent Jobs issue that has been on my mind… (and haven’t written about here. yet).
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