Because you can observe a lot just by watching.
Well, uh, I don’t have much to say about it, but I wandered across Shelby Center today (didn’t step on anything though, I was careful).
It runs on Ruby on Rails and does best on Windows. It helps with information thingies and the like.
They have a demo that sort of does stuff and it is free. There is almost some information here: Shelby Center Wiki. I’m mainly noting this to look at it later.
Sometimes a KVM just doesn’t cut it. It is nice to be able to share a keyboard, Video device (monitor), and a Mouse between 2 computers and I actually do this at my desk. However I have some computers which are better off with their own monitors, but I would prefer not having 2 sets of input devices to work with.
There are a couple options for this, but right now I am using Synergy because it is free.
My setup is simple. I have twocomputers set up next to each other and each system has its own keyboard, mouse, and monitor. I set up one machine as the server and the other one as the client. I can use the server’s keyboard and mouse to control both computers. Wherever the mouse is, that is the computer I am controlling. I can do cut & paste across the computers, but I cannot copy files (Multiplicity Pro can do that for $50 though).
I keep the keyboard and mouse for the second computer on hand since I do need them for logging on to the second computer. I am right handed so the computer I use for the synergy server has the keyboard to the left and the mouse to the right, but the second computer has its mouse right next to the server mouse to make it more accessible if needed.
To improve file sharing across the computers I have a shared folder on each desktop and then a shortcut to the other computer’s shared folder as well.
Moving between computers is simple. I have configured it so that if I take the mouse to any edge of one of the monitors it goes over to the other computer/monitor top to bottom, left to right. I dould add multiple computers to the arrangement and logically connect them like multiple screens on a regular computer, but they are really multiple systems.
You can configure it like I did so that it does not just flow straight between screens, that makes it to easy to end up on the wrong system. I set it so that I have to tap the pointer twice (within 250ms) against the side of the view area for it to go across. You can also have it require that you leave the mouse against the edge for a particular amount of time for it to go across.
Good Stuff
Not So Good Stuff
All in all, I like this program and it is a good price (free).
In order to help you stay just a little “L33tR than Thou” around your friends, I recommend ASCII Mapping.
Sure, others can use roadmaps or satellite images, but you can check it out in ASCII.
The good news: Green or Amber on black.
The bad news: Rendered images not plain text.
How do you solve a basic problem?
Do you gather a committee, consider 30 options, call in at least 3 competing bids, analyze and over-analyze, procrastinate and hope it fixes itself; or do you just get down and put your tongue to the pavement and handle it yourself?
Go forward
Move ahead
Try to detect it
It’s not too late
To lick it
Lick it good
Yesterday I pointed out the Snissa Extension and I received some tips on other similar programs.
Screen Grab! does about the same thing, although it obviously does not post the image to Snissa’s web site. Its other options unclude just grabbing the visible portion of the page and grabbing the whole window similar to alt-Print Screen.
Cropper is another similar tool, yet very different. It is not a Firefox extension and is Windows only (requires .NET), but it will grab a picture of anything on the screen. Once activated you can have its box appear on the screen. You set its options for what kind of output you want and how you want it to handle certain aspects of the environment. You box in the area you need and fire. It will drop a jpg, bmp, png, or even a gif with the proper extension into the directory you selected. When the options are set you can just keep hitting Enter and it will send the image to the directory.
I have tested it in making screen grabs of security camera video. As long as you reduce the harware acceleration to at least half then you can use this tool to grab the image.
If you thought it was amazing that Wednesday had the time of 01:02:03 04/05/06, wait until you check this one out!!!!!!
Tomorrow will have: 13:59:28 4/7/06
That is all the numbers from 0-9 in a completely random order.
According to my calculations this won’t happen again until 1 hour 29 minutes and eleven seconds later when it will be 15:28:39 4/7/06
Isn’t that amazing?
Law of probability: The probability of being watched is directly proportional to the stupidity of your act.
Law of the Telephone: When you dial a wrong number, you never get a busy signal.
Law of the Alibi: If you tell the boss you were late for work because you had a flat tire, the very next morning you will have a flat tire.
Law of Mechanical Repair: After your hands become coated with grease your nose will begin to itch or you’ll have to pee.
Grazr is providing a “browser within a browser” that lets you look at RSS feeds and the entries associated with them.
I placed it at http://osministry.com/index.htm and linked it to the rss feed from the blog here. I had wanted to place it in this post here, but Wordpress didn’t like it.
If you don’t see it on the page linked above then this is an old post and I have removed it, but I am glad you found this old post anyway.
