In our last episode, I mentioned my computer setup was mid-overhaul. Observation: attaching a new monitor to an older computer makes it feel squeaky fresh again. So now I have two 1920×1200 monitors — a Dell E248WFP on the left, a Hanns.G HG281DPB on the right — hooked up via DVI to an older "Extend-It" version of the Gefen 2×2 DVI switcher. Which in turn is connected to a Mac Pro and a Q6600-powered PC. I was concerned at first that my Bluetooth DiNovo Edge wouldn't work, but yes, it does.
I did run into an annoying hitch: my Mac Pro has two graphics cards, a GeForce 8800GT (upgrade) and the original factory Radeon HD 2600 XT. So I had one DVI output hooked up to the KVM from each of the cards. For whatever reason, this played badly, and whenever I switched back to the Mac, my mouse (IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0) didn't work correctly — the red light flickered erratically. And yet, the keyboard still functioned. The PC side of things worked fine, so I continued to juggle ports, and at last hooked both Mac video outs to the 8800GT. Seems to mostly switch fine now, [UPDATE] but there's been an occasional switch where I had to re-plug the Mac Pro monitors to recognize the mouse, so I may have to look for a more reliable way like not sharing the mouse between systems. (Aggravates me not putting that other graphics card to use.)
Related caveat: you may be wondering whatever happened to my Samsung SyncMaster 204Bs. I'm sad to say one died awhile ago, and the other is fading fast: when I turn it on, the screen flickers a lot and it takes forever (hours!) to fully wake from sleep. Research shows me this is a common problem with this model. As a result, I can't have power-saving on, and that diminishes monitor life further. So I set the remaining 204B aside and thought I might try some triple-monitor action with my Mac. While it "worked", it was iffy when KVM-switching back and forth (since monitor #3 isn't shared with the PC), and my Mac's desktop config annoyingly shifted around. So I've unplugged it for now, considering hooking it up to a cheap other computer I've yet to acquire… but keeping it on so it doesn't die too. (Repair tickets have been sent to Samsung, but they apparently take 7-14 business days to action after I called to ask, longer during the holidays.)
What else is there?
Remaining logistics to figure out route sound. I've heard KVM audio passthroughs are noisy, and while I didn't test this one's, it doesn't fit my needs, anyway. I plan to do the majority of my "serious audio work" on my Mac Pro, where I pleasantly found that thanks to Core Audio, even cheap USB headsets have low latency. I have a Blue Snowflake mic arriving today for future video tutorials, and heavens would you know it, Mac makes it easy to record your mic and its own audio (stereo out). As a result, where on Windows XP I couldn't find an easy way to do this at all with Camtasia, a number of Mac apps I've tried, like iShowU, easily allow recording from multiple sources. And after having prior success on my MacBook Pro with it, I'm using WireTap Pro (replaced by WireTap Studio) to record voice chat in Second Life.
Matt Doyle had a good blog post on "10 ways that Windows is better than Mac OS", and I had to chime in with my experiences this far. Sadly, some would-be Mac fanbois have missed his points. I may be zealous, but if there's good "on the other side", I call it out.
Many things are clearly simpler and a lot more fun on the Mac. I haven't found a to-do Windows equivalent as elegant as Cultured Code's Things, and while the Mac version of Evernote is feature-deficient compared to its PC counterpart, it's still very slick. But, it still strikes me as a big market hole that there's no Mac blogging app better than Windows Live Writer (which, by name, will almost inevitably remain Windows-only). I've tried Blogo, MarsEdit, ecto, etc. and didn't like any of them as much. Which is why I'm on the PC side of things right now, composing this in WLW. In an age of rich media, most Mac blog editors support images and some even have "Flickr helpers", but nothing matches WLW's support for pasting in YouTube videos and other Flash content, and watching it inline.
I'm still getting used to switching back and forth — it's not as seamless as Parallels and like many KVM reviewers have said, it does take a few seconds for keyboard + mouse to be recognized after each switch, in addition to the monitors blinking as they get recognized. However, this does give me all the existing power of my Q6600. Maybe I'll setup a shared Google Doc for easier copying-and-pasting of stuff, or at least have my Gmail open.
We'll see how this setup copes when I start recording screencasts on my Mac and editing them in Sony Vegas on Windows… to be continued…
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I had a similar USB mouse sharing issue when I had my old Mac G5 and PC connected thru a KVM with dual monitors. I ended up getting a separate mini USB switcher to share the mouse – it worked very well
I prefer having keeping the Mac and PC separate, each with their own keyboards and trackballs and screens. This way I can simultaneously multitask.
Sharing a keyboard and mouse is too modal.
What keeps the space requirement low is to use wireless trackballs (which I prefer to mice), and a smaller low profile wireless keyboards (such as Microsoft's wireless Keyboard 3000 – which is Microsoft's best keyboard from a touchtypist at 120 words per minute).