Intelligent Defaults Save Time

Have you ever been a regular at a coffee shop? The barista knows you by name, and every morning when you come by, she’s already got your Triple Non-Fat Sugar-Free Vanilla Latte waiting for you. That’s an intelligent default. She doesn’t know for sure that’s what you want, or even that you’ll come in today, but you’ve ordered it enough times before that she’s confident making it.

Well-written software can have intelligent defaults, too, and you can give your users that same feeling of anticipating their needs. Here are a few examples of programs that found a clever way to save their users’ time with common, repetitive tasks. Continue reading

Mac vs PC Firefox 3 Add Bookmark Dialog

Mac vs PC Firefox 3 Add Bookmark Dialog

One major annoyance between the Mac and PC versions of Firefox 3 is the position of the “Done” button on the Add Bookmark dialog. On a Mac, the button is on the right. On a PC, it’s on the left. I won’t comment on which is better, just that the difference breaks my muscle memory and is driving me up the wall, and causing me to lose bookmarks that I think I’ve saved.

The only saving grace here is that “Done” is the default action on both, so what I really need to do is train myself to press Enter on the keyboard instead of mousing over and clicking on the button.

Note: This was originally posted on my work blog, and I’m re-posting it here for archival purposes.

How to Use a Mac and a PC with a Single Keyboard and Mouse

Scott's Desktop

As a web developer who prefers to use a Macintosh, I struggled to find the least painful way to test my work on a PC. Dual-booting was a possibility, but having to reboot every time I want to check IE was a pain. A KVM Switch was a little better, but it was still inconvenient, and I had difficulty locating one that would let me use my DVI monitor and USB mouse. I had a PC, but it bugged me having the second monitor, mouse and keyboard on the desk, getting in the way all the time. So you can imagine how happy I was to discover a way to share a single keyboard and mouse between two computers.

The solution, which seemed magical, turned out to be a program called Synergy. After installing the software on both computers, you assign one to be the server and one to be the client. The server shares its keyboard and mouse input with the client over the network, effectively creating a dual-monitor setup where one monitor is a PC and one is a Mac.

In my case, I’ve got my Mac set up as the server, and I’ve got the PC keyboard and mouse at the back of my desk, behind the monitors – though I could just as easily put them under the desk, or even disconnect them entirely. The instructions I’m about to share are for that setup, though you could easily adjust them to have the PC be the server, or to add extra client computers (Mac-PC-Linux Tri-Monitor System, anyone?). It also works flawlessly with the operating system’s native multi-monitor support (my coworker has a dual-monitor Mac and a third monitor for his PC).

Advantages

  • Clutter-free desktop with only one keyboard and mouse.
  • Easily jump from Macintosh to PC and back, without needing to reboot or flip a switch.
  • Cut-and-Paste between Macintosh and PC.
  • Use your favorite programs, regardless of Operating System – for instance, use TextMate on your Mac, and Outlook on your PC.

Disadvantages

  • Confuses coworkers using your computer – though this could be seen as an advantage.
  • Keyboard layout conflicts – Mac and PC keyboards put the ALT key in a different place, and the Mac uses the CMD key instead of the CTRL key. This can really mess with your muscle memory, and I constantly found myself trying to use CMD-C to copy text on my PC. Synergy lets you remap keys, but this again can confuse coworkers using your computer when the CTRL key doesn’t do what they expect.
  • Requires two actual computers, as opposed to dual-booting or emulation. This isn’t a problem if you already have two computers, but if you’re looking for an all-in-one solution, this won’t work for you.

Note: The two computers will need to be on the same network.

Macintosh Instructions

  1. Download and install the Synergy Mac Client.
  2. Open the new “SynergyKM” Control Panel icon.
  3. Click on the “General” tab.
  4. Select “Share my Keyboard and Mouse.”
  5. Check “Show Synergy status in the menu bar.”
  6. Click on the “Server Configuration” tab.
  7. Add your Macintosh:
    1. Click the Plus button to add a new screen.
    2. In the Name field, type the name of your Mac (this should match the Computer Name set in the Sharing pane of your Control Panel).
    3. You shouldn’t need to set anything under Screen Aliases or Screen Options.
  8. Add your PC:
    1. Click the Plus button to add a new screen.
    2. In the Name field, type the IP address of your PC (you can find this by typing “ipconfig” at a command prompt on your PC).
    3. Under Screen Aliases, add an alias and type the name of your PC (this should match the Computer Name set in the System Properties tool, found in your Control Panel).
    4. Under Screen Options, swap the Control and Command keys for the PC, to keep your keyboard layout the same between systems.
  9. Press the “Apply Now” button, and start Synergy if it isn’t started already.

PC Instructions

  1. Download and install the Synergy PC Client
  2. Start the Synergy program.
  3. Select “Use another computer’s shared keyboard and mouse (client)”
  4. Click on “Advanced” and set Screen Name to the name of your PC (this should match the Computer Name set in the System Properties tool, found in your Control Panel).
  5. Click on “Autostart” and click the Install button under “When Computer Starts” – which will start Synergy as a service on the computer.
  6. Press the “Start” button (which should automatically minimize the program to your system tray).

Note: You may need to restart one or both computers to get everything synchronized.

After following the above instructions, you should have the same setup that I do. My experience is then when I reboot either or both computers, it generally takes 15-30 seconds before the Synergy client on my PC picks up on the input from the Mac.

Screensaver Notes

One of the only hiccups I’ve encountered with Synergy is with screensavers. If I’m working on my Mac, and don’t touch the PC for awhile, the screensaver will start, and I can’t “wake it up” using my Mac’s keyboard or mouse. I think this is because I’ve got the “Require password to wake computer from screensaver” option checked on my PC. When that happens, I just reach up and give the PC’s mouse a poke. There is an option in the program to “Synchronize Screensavers,” but when I used it, it not only didn’t work, but it seemed to make the system unstable. Your results may be better.

Do you need a Keyboard and Mouse on the PC?

After I set my coworker Ryan up with Synergy, he disconnected his PC’s keyboard and mouse, and hasn’t had a single problem. He doesn’t use a screensaver on his PC (just the energy saver mode), so that particular problem doesn’t affect him.

Outside of that, the only situation I can think of where you’d need them is if you lost network connectivity, then your PC would be a paperweight until the network came back up.

So the answer is “Yes, if you’re paranoid like me, or use a password-protected screensaver,” but otherwise, you can go ahead and disconnect them with no problems.

References

  1. Lifehacker article about Synergy
  2. Synergy Macintosh Client
  3. Synergy PC Client
  4. Synergy Project Homepage

Update, 2/21/2008: Updated the URL for the Synergy Mac client to its new home on Sourceforge

Comcast: Not Much Better Than Qwest

Submitted via an email form to Comcast this morning:

This morning I ran the Comcast install CD wizard on my macintosh. It’s running OS 10.3. When the wizard was finished, the internet connectivity was working great, but for some reason, it changed my shell prompt. Previously, it was displaying Hosaka:> – which is the name of my computer. Now it displays c-24-19-225-21:> – which is the letter C followed by the dynamic IP address that was just assigned to my computer.

I use my shell prompt all day long for internet work, so while this is a cosmetic change, it is important to me. I could not find how to change it back, so I called 800-Comcast for tech support.

When I called at about 11am on Monday, November 1st, I was connected to John, who gave his service ID as 62410.

John was EXTREMELY unhelpful. After describing the problem to him, his first reaction was “That is clearly not an IP address”. After I explained that nothing else had changed on the computer, and that the wizard had clearly made this change, he told me that there was no way the wizard did this, since all it does is configure the IP (not true, by the way, the mac wizard does several other things, including creating a new location profile). When I persisted, John informed me that they don’t support OS 10.3, and that I should contact Apple tech support instead.

When I asked John to transfer me to a manger or someone else, he refused, and informed me that the managers were only there for payroll, and deferred all tech discussion to the “training and experience” of the guys on the floor, like him.

When I asked him to transfer me to someone where I could lodge a complaint, he told me I could find the information on the website. I asked him if he could just transfer me, since I had already called the number on the website, and he got sarcastic and asked “Are you talking over a website right now?”

I’m disappointed both in complete unwillingness of the phone support guy to try to find a solution, and in the fact that the wizard made this kind of change without giving me a way to set it back.

Edit: About twelve hours later now, and I’ve just added my wi-fi router to the mix, which assigned a new IP address to my computer, which seems to have fixed the problem, meaning it was a temporary thing. Thank goodness, since I was not looking forward to calling “tech support” again. Long story short: everything seems to be working now, no thanks to Comcast.

Dude, I Rule

“I’m a strong believer in the philosophy of a ruling class. Especially since I rule.”
– Randall inClerks

That about sums up how I feel right now. When I set up KillingMachines.org, it was the first time I had ever put up a website with a clear goal in mind. And not just a goal, but a list of them. I wanted nothing less than to write the best weblog site available. I had been to livejournal and blogger and was unimpressed. FCS could do most of what they did, and what it couldn’t do was made up for by the fact that it didn’t suck like they did. Who wants to pay to use a weblog site? And haven’t these people ever heard of databases? Why on earth are they ftp’ing the blog entries?

And so I wrote my manifesto. KillingMachines would become, with Steve’s help, and building on the base of FCS, the site I imagined. Users would be able to completely skin their journals. They could set their account to be either a personal journal, or a forum where everyone could post. They would automatically receive a subdomain for their journal. They could turn replies on and off. Most of these features were just pipe dreams at the time, but Steve helped me out a lot, and we got the site up and running, and eventually, only two major features were missing: User-defined skins for journals, and the ability to set an account to be either forum or journal.

I’m pleased to announce that I have finally gotten these features working, and KillingMachines is now FEATURE COMPLETE. I’ve got a few more tricks up my sleeve, but basically the site has everything it needs to be the best weblog site ever. I’m extremely proud of it, and I genuinely believe that given time, word of mouth will turn KMorg into a weblog powerhouse on the web!

And as if that wasn’t cool enough, something else is going my way! Recently, I got the idea in my head that it might be nice to have a Macintosh. The germ behind this idea is osX. This fine operating system is really fun to play with, and the fact that it’s built on a base of BSD makes it hard for me to resist. However, I’m not about to ditch my PC for a mac. I just like the idea of having one around to play with. As a result, I couldn’t justify spending $700 for a new one. Just today, I was mentioning to Annie that if I could find an iMac for around $300, I would probably buy it.

Well, today I may have found one. I’ve been talking with the owner, and she’s been looking to offload her old blueberry G3 iMac 333Mhz. I offered her $250, and things are looking good. Pretty soon, I might have a nice little mac sitting on my desk, waiting for me to grab a copy of osX!