Category: workspace

Improving remote camaraderie with social team chat channel

After reading http://blog.rescuetime.com/2014/05/14/a-little-hack-that-made-our-remote-team-not-feel-so-remote-anymore/ a great idea came to my mind.

Create separate group (team) chat channel just for “social” purpose where the team members shared stories would flow in. For example new blog post, Facebook, Instagram or Twitter post, Foursquare check-in, etc. Every team member would provide his own shared stories via the services APIs. All stuff would be mainly automated.

I would like to know an automated solution for the scenario of leaving and coming home. Maybe the AFK set by the chat app is the ideal (privacy concerned) solution 🙂

Control different computers with one mouse and keyboard

I read a long time about Synergy in Matt Cutt’s blog post, but didn’t give it a try. Today the day finally came and it was well worth it.

Now I can mouse over to the notebook and work in Photoshop and mouse over back to my Linux desktop.

Synergy macbook and desktop

Synergy on OSX
Synergy client on OSX

Server configuration

#
# /etc/synergy.conf
#
# comments begin with the # character and continue to the end of
# line.  comments may appear anywhere the syntax permits.
# +-------+  +--------+
# |mike-nb|  |zeus-pc |
# |       |  |        |
# +-------+  +--------+
# http://synergy-project.org/wiki/Text_Config

section: screens
	zeus.zuber.gutanet.sk:
	mike.zuber.gutanet.sk:
end

section: links
	# mike-nb is to the left of zeus-pc
	zeus.zuber.gutanet.sk:
		left = mike.zuber.gutanet.sk
	mike.zuber.gutanet.sk:
		right = zeus.zuber.gutanet.sk
end

section: aliases
	zeus.zuber.gutanet.sk:
        192.168.2.9
	mike.zuber.gutanet.sk:
        192.168.2.4
	mike.zuber.gutanet.sk:
        mike.local
end

section: options
    screenSaverSync = false
end

More info at http://synergy-project.org/wiki/Text_Config

Synergy Linux server config
Synergy Linux server config

If you get the FATAL: unknown screen name `zeus’ check your hostname via the hostname command in Linux. The hostname must correspond with the name in the config.