Archive for category SOFTWARE
Synergy – Work Across Computers
Posted by Jeff in OPEN SOURCE, SOFTWARE on March 29, 2010
A good friend of mine showed me this program and with a bit of help, we were able to get it running. This is going from my home computer (dell tower) to my work laptop (macbook pro). It is very handy to be able to (using my home computer), mouse over to my macbook pro, work on something, mouse back over to my tower, and continue etc. You can also copy/paste text between the computers which is pretty sweet when copying snippets of code. (I currently use DropBox to share files). I won’t do an exhaustive tutorial on how to set up synergy, as the ‘Using Synergy’ link on the sourceforge site is pretty good, but wanted to offer a few tricks to get it working:
With my setup at home, my mac book pro is to the right of my tower. To get started, choose a computer you will use as the ‘server’. (The one that will control all the computers connected in this method; in my case my dell tower):
- Set up your computers by entering both in the Screens box (use your actual computer names)
- For the client computer (in my case the mac) in the alias screen you should type ComputerName.local (this is not needed for your server computer)
- Setup your links. Mine read:
- MacName is right of DellTower (and the corresponding rules…)
- DellTower is left of MacName
The mac (using it as the client):
- All you need to do is open terminal and enter a command like this:
/Users/username/Desktop/synergy-1.3.1/synergyc -f 192.168.blah.blah
I had to use the IP address of my dell as the computer name was not working.
I think it makes it easier having the Windows computer as the host because you have a GUI to configure it and don’t need to fuss with the config file on the mac. Hope this helps someone!
Joost – Another reason to cancel cable
I am hoping that I can watch rugby games through Joost as I dearly miss the sport. If you want an invite, leave a comment and I will invite you.
How to convert mp4 files to mp3 files
I always hated how anything downloaded from Itunes made it so you couldn’t play the stupid mp4a file on anything but an IPOD. Seeing as how I purchased a new phone that has a gig of space for mp3′s I needed a converter. Free Audio Pack to the rescue! It converts those ridiculous files (as well as many others) to mp3s that I can load onto my phone or burn to an mp3 cd to play in my car. The price was right too.
Tivo2DVD
If any of you Tivo owners out their are linux users, this is great news for you. Get all your tivo recordings burned onto a dvd. Can us Windows users get some love too?
Quicken
Well after a long hard battle with Quicken, I think I finally have it figured out. After much reading of the help file (most applications help systems have come a long way!) and reading/posting on their support forum, it is working! I am also thankful that it looks like it was actually worth the hours spent getting it to work as it certainly beats the Excel spreadsheet I was using for budgeting.
If I can pass on one huge ‘n helpful tip for you Bank of America people (such as me) it is this: Do NOT sign up for their one step update during Quicken’s install as it will mess up your accounts and place transactions from one account in another and vice versa. Instead, I would highly recommend performing the following steps to save you a bunch of time. (after you have installed it)
- Create your individual accounts in Quicken (savings, checking etc)
- Log in to your B of A account online
- Go to each account that created in quicken (ie checking, savings etc)
- Download the Quicken file
- Open it with the Quicken tool
- It will automatically import to each account
Do this with all of your accounts as it will save you hours of headaches trying to get the account set up within Quicken. I believe it is primarily a Bank of America issue as their computer systems are ancient. (especially if you are a member in WA or ID).
If you want a little more detail on the problem I encountered, Read the rest of this entry »