Use your laptop as a monitor for external source. Finally!

I’ve been asking for a way to use my laptop as a monitor for an external video source for ever.

Consider the following scenarios:

• I have a headless computer running and I want to poke at it at the console
• A friend hands me a desktop computer and I want to know what works
• My friend wants to bring their computer to me to fix, but I don’t have a monitor with me

Enter the Eiphan KVM2USB. This little box plugs into your USB port and provides VGA, PS/2, and USB ports so your laptop can pretend to be a monitor and keyboard/mouse. Slick! For sysadmins, this is a really cool tool.

Free Software starts in your pocket

(This is the 2nd part of On the topic of paying)

My last blog post was…rather long. So as a reward (and because this one might be even longer), I’ll tell you right up front about this one:

The problem: Lots of change in my pocket.
The solution: Donation to Free Software

Oh, you probably guessed it as soon as I wrote that catchy title up there, didn’t you?

But what you didn’t guess was the marvelous way in which all of the pieces come together, killing several birds with one stone. So bring your little birdies and bag full of change along and I’ll tell you what to do.

On the topic of paying

A few weeks ago* I was in the supermarket buying some delicious food. Mmmmm, delicious food. When it came time to pay, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my wallet and coin purse. I’ve gotten into the habit of paying for things in cash, using exact change if I have it, so in order to pay one really needs to have both bills and coin in readily-accessible locations. As I was starting to pay, I realized that there were several people waiting in line and was worried about holding them up, so I just handed the clerk some bills and got back 87 cents in change, which I jammed into my pocket as quickly as possible. Once I had loaded my car with bags I dug the change out of my pocket and added it to my already-full coin purse. Paying in cash wasn’t working out. I needed a new plan.

My father has always been a strong believer in paying in cash. “If you use a credit card,” he told me once, “then the credit card companies can keep track of what you purchased and when you purchased it.” Which is true. But of course in order to maintain your privacy you’d probably also have to give up using the loyalty cards that all of the supermarkets have these days, and thus pay a kind of “privacy tax” as you don’t get the price break when items are on sale. Sadness.

Bûcheron

Goat cheese…. or a lumberjack?

It turns out that it’s actually both. But I suggest that you don’t try to chop down any goat-cheese trees, as I feel that wouldn’t turn out so well.