This post is inspired by a page that is having difficulty keeping the posts on topic. There are a lot of people who love the subject, but the page is pretty focused on one niche of the subject. The admin is kind of pulling her hair out trying to keep the main page clean to ensure it's purpose does not get lost, but she is happy to have people add photos and posts that are not directly related; she just wants them added to the page's photo albums or files (which are really documents, but they can be commented on).
Doing so is easier said than done unless you're familiar with the options already. When viewing the page on a PC, it's fairly straightforward. To create a new document that everyone can read and comment on, separate from the main page, just click the "Files" tab on the page. Same with photos. Just click the "Photos" tab, select the appropriate album, and upload.
Not so easy on your smartphone. In fact, [nearly] impossible on the iPhone. You can view documents and photos on the page, but you cannot add or upload new ones. For the record, I'm using the most recent Facebook app on my iPhone 5 with iOS 7.2. To view them, in the title at the top of the page you will notice an arrow (actually it's a greater than sign... sigh... really Apple?) pointing to the right. Click on that and you will see the list of additional options.
I said "nearly" impossible because, not one to be daunted be mere facts, I did track down a way to post photos from the iPhone. I couldn't find a way to post documents, so I'll offer a suggestion on that in a moment. In order to get an option to post a photo, I had to use a copy of the Opera Mini browser and log into Facebook using that. From there you can access the group much the same as you would on your PC, though the format is a bit different. Scroll to the bottom of the page and you'll see most of what you would find in the navigation pane on the left when viewing on your PC. Once in the group there is a "Photos" link right near the top. Select the album from that list, and then select the "Or attach a photo" option just below the "Write a comment" box.
For documents, the only thing I have to offer is to use a regular computer. However, if you are itching to get your idea written down now, write yourself an email with the post. Then when you get to a regular computer you can just copy and paste the text from the email into a new document. Alternatively, you could use the messaging function and write the entire post to a friend. That way you can pull up the history right from Facebook to get the text, then post it to the page's documents.
I'll need to do some testing with an Android to figure out what options are available for those devices. Once I do I'll write a follow-up post with instructions. Yeah, sorry folks, I'm a die-hard iPhone user. I like the Android devices and have nothing against them. I just don't have one to test with all the time. (I'm working getting simulators installed for my computer, so next time I should be able to provide any such instructions all in one place.) If anyone does have instructions, please feel free to post a comment and I will consider editing this article and republishing.
Monday, October 21, 2013
Friday, February 5, 2010
Multi-screen Miracle
I'm a geek. I love tech, gadgets, Star Wars, and generally geeky things. I play video games, build computers, work with enterprise level applications (MS Exchange, MS SQL, Windows Server and Active Directory, etc.), and can spend hours at Fry's Electronics without getting even slightly bored.
That's why I'm starting this blog. I plan on discussing hardware, software, tips, tricks, and anything new (or sometimes not-so-new but awesomely geeky anyway) or cool in the world of computers and tech.
So today's topic has to do with a new multi-screen application I found a few days ago. I'm as careful as I can be not to disparage a specific piece of software, but in this case I don't have much choice. Please forgive me for being negative. The product I'm going to reproach is called "Synergy". The one I'm going to praise is "Input Director".
I have three monitors at my workstation. Now, not everyone can enjoy the type of hardware I have available to me, but it makes my job so much easier to be able to have so much desktop space. I'm constantly comparing data either within the same application or between applications, and being able to spread that across several screens really cuts down on the time it takes me to do my job.
Of course, the problem is that most computers will only support two monitors. Not a problem, I have a second compter for the third monitor. The problem is switching between that computer and my primary computer with the same keyboard and mouse. Yes, I can use a KVM to switch between them, but how much easier would it be if I could just slide my mouse over to the screen on the second computer and use my keyboard and mouse directly rather than having to switch it through a KVM?
Enter the Synergy application, which I previously used to do just that. I had used Synergy for the better part of three years in order to accomplish this task. It has always worked fairly well, though the setup can be a bit complicated. One of the first issues I faced was with locking my systems. When I walk away from my computers I need to lock them or I violate my companies security policy (and leave myself open to having an email spam sent from my system by a malicious employee). This wasn't an issue, but logging back into the second system when I returned was. I had to make a modification to a text configuration file in order to get a Ctrl+Alt+Del sent to my second system so I could log it back on.
This was all well and good until I had Windows 7 put on my second system. Now all bets were off. I tried several different ways to get the same process to work with Windows 7, but there was just no way. Not only that, but I couldn't lock the system without switching over to the keyboard and mouse directly connected to the system. I did a lot of Google searching to see if I could find a solution. Well, I did find one, but not the one I expected. Enter Input Director.
I read about Input Director in a forum that was discussing my exact problem. So for kicks I downloaded and tried it. I was instantly sold. Not only was it able to get the login issue resolved, but it was INCREDIBLY simple to set up. I just installed the application on each system, clicked on a button to tell the application whether the system was a master or slave, put the name of the systems I was connecting to in the appropriate places, then used a graphical interface to specify the relative location of each monitor. Compared to the setup for Synergy, this was like child's play.
Even better, the locking problem I had was solved. With both systems on XP using Synergy, I had to lock each system separately. No big deal; just move the mouse to the secondary screen and press Windows+L and the system would lock, then move the mouse back to the primary screen and repeat. One of the annoyances with Synergy was that if I locked the primary system before locking the secondary system, my keyboard would start responding weirdly on the primary system. It would act like I had the Ctrl key pressed all the time. Even if I did it in the correct order, often times after I would log back in the secondary system would act as if the Windows key were pressed all the time. Pressing Windows+E would take care of the second problem, and Ctrl+M the first one, but it was still pretty annoying and time consuming.
Input director has none of these problems. In fact, I was able to click a single check box and now pressing Windows+L on the primary system automatically locks both systems for me.
If you have a setup like mine, I strongly endorse Input Directory. You can find the application at the following link:
http://www.inputdirector.com/
That's all for now. Look for more geeky tech posts in the future.
That's why I'm starting this blog. I plan on discussing hardware, software, tips, tricks, and anything new (or sometimes not-so-new but awesomely geeky anyway) or cool in the world of computers and tech.
So today's topic has to do with a new multi-screen application I found a few days ago. I'm as careful as I can be not to disparage a specific piece of software, but in this case I don't have much choice. Please forgive me for being negative. The product I'm going to reproach is called "Synergy". The one I'm going to praise is "Input Director".
I have three monitors at my workstation. Now, not everyone can enjoy the type of hardware I have available to me, but it makes my job so much easier to be able to have so much desktop space. I'm constantly comparing data either within the same application or between applications, and being able to spread that across several screens really cuts down on the time it takes me to do my job.
Of course, the problem is that most computers will only support two monitors. Not a problem, I have a second compter for the third monitor. The problem is switching between that computer and my primary computer with the same keyboard and mouse. Yes, I can use a KVM to switch between them, but how much easier would it be if I could just slide my mouse over to the screen on the second computer and use my keyboard and mouse directly rather than having to switch it through a KVM?
Enter the Synergy application, which I previously used to do just that. I had used Synergy for the better part of three years in order to accomplish this task. It has always worked fairly well, though the setup can be a bit complicated. One of the first issues I faced was with locking my systems. When I walk away from my computers I need to lock them or I violate my companies security policy (and leave myself open to having an email spam sent from my system by a malicious employee). This wasn't an issue, but logging back into the second system when I returned was. I had to make a modification to a text configuration file in order to get a Ctrl+Alt+Del sent to my second system so I could log it back on.
This was all well and good until I had Windows 7 put on my second system. Now all bets were off. I tried several different ways to get the same process to work with Windows 7, but there was just no way. Not only that, but I couldn't lock the system without switching over to the keyboard and mouse directly connected to the system. I did a lot of Google searching to see if I could find a solution. Well, I did find one, but not the one I expected. Enter Input Director.
I read about Input Director in a forum that was discussing my exact problem. So for kicks I downloaded and tried it. I was instantly sold. Not only was it able to get the login issue resolved, but it was INCREDIBLY simple to set up. I just installed the application on each system, clicked on a button to tell the application whether the system was a master or slave, put the name of the systems I was connecting to in the appropriate places, then used a graphical interface to specify the relative location of each monitor. Compared to the setup for Synergy, this was like child's play.
Even better, the locking problem I had was solved. With both systems on XP using Synergy, I had to lock each system separately. No big deal; just move the mouse to the secondary screen and press Windows+L and the system would lock, then move the mouse back to the primary screen and repeat. One of the annoyances with Synergy was that if I locked the primary system before locking the secondary system, my keyboard would start responding weirdly on the primary system. It would act like I had the Ctrl key pressed all the time. Even if I did it in the correct order, often times after I would log back in the secondary system would act as if the Windows key were pressed all the time. Pressing Windows+E would take care of the second problem, and Ctrl+M the first one, but it was still pretty annoying and time consuming.
Input director has none of these problems. In fact, I was able to click a single check box and now pressing Windows+L on the primary system automatically locks both systems for me.
If you have a setup like mine, I strongly endorse Input Directory. You can find the application at the following link:
http://www.inputdirector.com/
That's all for now. Look for more geeky tech posts in the future.
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