BeLoged

Orhan Karsligil's Ideas, Thoughts and Collection of Resources

Interesting Computer Related Links

Windows Server Hacks: Remotely Enable Remote Desktop

Concurrent Remote Desktop Sessions in Windows XP SP2

New Idea

I added a new "software I want to have" idea to my technology block. Click here to tread it :)

I want to add more over time. I have some weird ideas that someone might find interesting.

Finally I will have some time to work on my academic research as well. Expect to see the long promised filtering algorithms.

Orhan out.

Software I want II:

Over the weekend I was talking to a friend of mine and he was talking about websites where people ask for songs and song writers provide them. Basically an online music exchange. Musicians provide songs instead of goods or services and producers or singers search and buy songs...

So this gave me an idea: Do it yourself music engine...

In movies they have these artists in police stations who sketch the picture of the suspect based on the description of the observers.

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There is now software police uses that does this in an computer environment. People select types of facial features and the computer merges them and then morphs the picture until the observer is satisfied. Much faster and you do not need an artist :)

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There is already research in what people like in terms of melodies, rhythms etc. There are definitely winning combinations.

= Create a software where the user describes what type of music they want and the computer generates it and morphs it until the user is satisfied. User should be able to sample songs they want. Or select styles from popular songs (there should be a fingerprinting algorithm to uniquely identify a song and other algorithms that drive the work in progress towards that fingerprint (like minimization in optimization) so that they sound similarly but not the same).

Software I want: I

Okay, I have to use more than one computer at the same time most of the time. I do not want to use two keyboards two mouses etc. Yes there are hardware KVM switches that let you use multiple machines from one set of monitor, keyboard and mouse, but you still have to switch from one machine to another.

Over the years I started first with KVM switches, then I started using VNC or RDP (Microsoft Remote Desktop) to eleminate the need for extra hardware (and the other machines I use sometimes are not under my desk but far far away). Last year when I was writing some test plans I needed two displays. One for the application I was writing test plans for and one for the document. ALT+TABing was very ineffient. My work machine is an IBM Thinkpad A22. It is kind of an old machine. When you attach an external monitor to newer laptops you can display separate things on the Laptop screen and the extra monitor.. unfortunatelly A22's graphic card cannot handle such a task. So I had to give up the extra monitor but I needed more desktop real estate. So I went to the junk yard (in the office) and grabbed an even older A20. I put a basic WinXP instance on it and started looking for a way to use its screen as an extention to mine.. After googling for an hour I found Maxivista. It is a server/client software. The server part sits on my machine and the Viewer part sits on the A20. When you enable it the A20s screen becomes a second monitor on your machine. It works very nicely over the network connection. You can decide geographically where you want to put the extra screen relative to your screen and then when you move the mouse accross yours it enters the other screen. You can grab and move windows to the other screen or you can open a very large window to cover both screens (useful if you have to draw very large diagrams on Visio). So that solved some of my problems. Actually it is possible to extend the screen upto 4 machines using this software.

When I started thinking that I have finally a good solution for my problems I needed to VPN to a remote site and do some database work. My machine did not have the software and I could not install it on my machine since it was conflicting with other software. So I had to use another machine. I found the machine (another A22) but did not have space on my desk to put it. I had to put it in a folder holder behind my own A22. Of course I could not use the keyboard or the mouse stick on it. So when I was going to get a KVM switch I decided to do another Google search. After 15 minutes I found what I was looking for: A software KVM, and a free one...Synergy. It is also a client/server app. I installed the server on my machine and the client on the other A22. I configured the application with the geographic location of my machine. When I started it I had my solution...When I move the mouse up behind my own screen I moves into the other A22 with the VPN and database sofware, if I move it to the left it goes to the A20 to the left of my machine.

So know I have 3 laptops sitting on my desk. One is an extention to my screen (I do not use its CPU cycle, just the screen) and the other one is an extra CPU with its own desktop. Works very nicely.

Now what I really need is something like X in Unix, but more flexible:
-1 or more screens sharing the same desktop (like a very large screen)
-1 or more CPUs (boxes) should be running the applications on this screen. I should be able to decide where to run the application (both where on the screen and on which CPU)
-Only 1 set of keyboard and mouse.
-It should be a cross OS platform (A new virtual desktop running on Windows, Linux etc) Of course Windows apps will only run on Windows CPUs and Linux apps on Linux CPUs but both will show up on the same desktop. (Cygwin does this partially)

All the pieces are out there: Cygwin, Synergy, Maxivista etc. Someone has to bring them together. The solution would be like having a cluster on every desk. Can someone create something like that for me please????

I am back

Wow, it has been a while... finally had time and mind to write something again. Planning to go back to research again. This time with a more structured plan and time table. I finished some simulations but never had time to put them together to publish them in a meaningful way. Will start working on it soon.

Found a new toy: Amaya from W3C foundation. A very nice HTML, MATHML, SVG editor. I am mostly interested in its math representation skills. I might use it to create some short papers. I can then print them in PDF format and post online.

I will update the Technology blog with some Software wishlists. For a long time I was thinking about some software that would make my life easier... I will write them down, perhaps someone will create them for me :)

Orhan out.