EYEHEARTZOMBIES

Last week I finally bought a longer ethernet cable so I could have both computers (the iBook and the Ubuntu machine) online at the same tme. Man, I should have done this when we first moved. It’s amazing how much easier it is to work on two computers than just this one iBook.

Yeah, that’s right. Two is easier than one. You just have to have them set up correctly and know how to use them. Since they’re both based on Unix, you get all the fun benefits that brings like being able to launch and control many programs from the commandline. Thanks to the wonders of a tabbed terminal and Irssi, I can monitor the log file for the Sproutit.com application while sitting in the Ruby on Rails IRC channel to get help on things that give me problems. I can run the Webrick server on my iBook to power the app, but view the site using Firefox on the Ubuntu machine, saving me the memory that Safari takes up (and it takes up a lot).

Probably the best thing, though, is the use of Synergy2. Synergy2 (S2 from now on) is a software-powered KVM which means I can use the Kensington mouse that’s hooked up to my iBook to transfer control of the keyboard and mouse from one computer to the next. So by sweeping my mouse to the right (since that’s where the Ubuntu monitor is), I can click on things on the Linux box and type into it using the iBook’s keyboard. You can start “ooh”-ing and “aah”-ing now.

This has helped me a lot today, I’ve been able to work at about twice the speed that I have been, once I got everything set up, of course. Some things are still a little iffy. I don’t quite have enough RAM on either machine to develop in Rails and still check my email with an email program. Since I relegated my RSS feeds to Bloglines I don’t have to deal with Safari checking them all the time (that really adds to Safari’s footprint). And turning off all but a couple of Dashboard widgets saves a ton of RAM, too.

I’m still figuring out just how to save the most space and memory, but it’s getting better and better. Any of you have any handy tricks for avoiding computer overloads?