One year ago almost exactly I wrote about using VNC with a couple of home computers. My computer arrangement after that date was changed and remote access was not needed between two rooms of the house. However this week I have decided there are scenarios for remoting from the bedroom to the lounge where three main computers are. Mainly that it will enable me to do some computing stuff and have a devotional time at the same time in the bedroom as that room is set up for devotional time and there are many small tasks that can be done on the computer that don’t need me sitting in front of it all of the time. So in enabling me to increase my devotional time which is what I really want to be able to do. It is also better for being able to work on the computer while in bed so that I can avoid staying up way past my bedtime as I have at times. Bed is a much better place to be if you are tired as falling asleep in front of the desk is risky since many times I have fallen off my chair and landed heavily on the floor.
Remmina as a client and x11vnc as the server are the combination used just as my previous post described and Remmina presents the screen as two windows side by side that you can just move the mouse to the edge of the monitor to scroll to the other screen. I will not be setting up remote access to the other computers in the lounge as it’s only MainPC that really justifies this. Since for more indepth stuff I can just work in the other room. Working from in bed at times and at other times sitting in front of a music keyboard, using a multimedia computer keyboard is not very productive as compared to a regular desk setup but I won’t be doing this with the desk even though it has been fitted in the past with a keyboard slide as it has since been lowered to be at the right height for playing the music keyboard. In effect this options is really only for relatively simple tasks that do not require a lot of typing or a regular mouse in place of a touchpad. And I don’t want the distraction of a full keyboard/mouse setup in the bedroom because it is of secondary importance. I already had the E350 HTPC set up to play videos and it has adapted easily to this new role with a pair of Dell 22″ screens. Unfortunately at this stage I cannot used the 1366×768 Sony 32″ monitor as one of the screens as this resolution is not available when mirroring the screens so cannot use a 1680×1050 screen mirrored with the Sony so 3 screens in the bedroom for now.
I had already been using a second screen with the computer (2 screens mirrored) to serve a dual purpose of enabling me to look at PDF music charts with my Casio keyboard as well as this second screen enabling me to have the computer on while playing music for night time intercession, a common scenario because of time differences doing international intercession, since I can just turn my head to the opposite side of the bed and the light from the screen won’t keep me awake. At a time when it is all important to have more devotional time, being able to use this setup is really useful. This week I have been doing lots of small repetitive tasks on the PC that don’t really warrant spending a lot of time sitting in front of it but still have to get done so being able to retreat to the bedroom is the best of both worlds and I am sure will continue to be in the future.
This is the first and last blog post written using this arrangement as being limited to two finger typing on a multimedia computer in bed is very slow and tedious.