I have a laptop and a PC at work. The laptop has a docking station that allows me to have a dual monitor setup. So, I connected the Monitor from my PC to the docking station and started using a dual monitor setup.
As expected, the productivity gains by having a dual monitor setup is great, but my PC lost out.
For a couple of months, I stopped using my PC and started using my Laptop for nearly everything. But its not an ideal situation. Builds, large downloads etc. are best on a PC because I can just lock the PC and let it run in the background. Whereas on a laptop, I usually hibernate the laptop when I go home and so, any builds or downloads will stall.
I decided to setup VNC between the two today. I used TightVNC. However, I found that the refresh rate pretty much sucks. Given that the two are just a few feet apart, and on the same network, I expected it to be nearly realtime.
A colleague suggested that I use RDP instead. I tried it out. Its amazing! The refresh rate is realtime and it looks like I'm using the PC itself. Plus, it allows me to run it on my second monitor. So, I can have applications from both my PC and my laptop on the second monitor and there is really no way to figure out if they are from the PC or the laptop.
VNC is pretty bad when it comes to running on a second monitor. If you go "full screen", the server display disappears and you are back to the extended desktop from the laptop.
All said and done, for this kind of setup, RDP is really cool. VNC has its uses especially if for multiple connections, heterogeneous environments etc. Coding Horror has an excellent comparision of the two here.
Myopic view of vnc, rdp
As expected, the productivity gains by having a dual monitor setup is great, but my PC lost out.
For a couple of months, I stopped using my PC and started using my Laptop for nearly everything. But its not an ideal situation. Builds, large downloads etc. are best on a PC because I can just lock the PC and let it run in the background. Whereas on a laptop, I usually hibernate the laptop when I go home and so, any builds or downloads will stall.
I decided to setup VNC between the two today. I used TightVNC. However, I found that the refresh rate pretty much sucks. Given that the two are just a few feet apart, and on the same network, I expected it to be nearly realtime.
A colleague suggested that I use RDP instead. I tried it out. Its amazing! The refresh rate is realtime and it looks like I'm using the PC itself. Plus, it allows me to run it on my second monitor. So, I can have applications from both my PC and my laptop on the second monitor and there is really no way to figure out if they are from the PC or the laptop.
VNC is pretty bad when it comes to running on a second monitor. If you go "full screen", the server display disappears and you are back to the extended desktop from the laptop.
All said and done, for this kind of setup, RDP is really cool. VNC has its uses especially if for multiple connections, heterogeneous environments etc. Coding Horror has an excellent comparision of the two here.
Myopic view of vnc, rdp
1 comment:
Check out synergy at Sourceforge. It allows you to use 2 computers with 2 monitors but 1 keyboard and mouse.
Sound odd?
IT WORKS FOR ME!!! :)
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