2016 — 28 February: Sunday
A somewhat delayed start1 as I've been busier attempting to diagnose and fix a "Lemony Snicket"-style series of unfortunate (display monitor-related) events.
It had been my hope...
... that I would be able to plumb the output from my NUC into the same 34" Dell screen that BlackBeast Mk III is using and thus flip-flop between them. Simple enough, surely?
You think?!
As I was saying...
... albeit some six hours ago, I had a hope. It has finally been achieved, but not at all in the way I would have predicted this morning. Annoying clashes between the two DisplayPort inputs on the Dell, and the faintly shocking inability of the NUC to drive it satisfactorily via its mini-DisplayPort output at full resolution and refresh rate2 proved completely insuperable.3 How to crack this nasty nut? The answer is a combination of Len's experience and "NoMachine", now installed and running on both BlackBeast and the NUC.
NoMachine is a Remote Desktop facility. So I'm now running with just the Dell, one keyboard, and one mouse. But now I can switch freely back and forth between BlackBeast and the NUC just by clicking on a couple of NoMachine icons on the desktop. The NUC just has its LAN connection, its power supply, and an HDMI connection into the 34" Dell screen — even that isn't actually necessary. No mouse. No keyboard. No screen.
BlackBeast's desktop appears as usual, directly on the Dell, fed from the graphics card in BlackBeast. The NUC's desktop is squirted on to the Dell over the LAN, via BlackBeast. This is a very convenient, easy, solution. I'm delighted.
As part of...
... the process of bringing the NUC into full alignment with Blackbeast it's time to revisit the useful checklist here.
I'm particularly looking forward...
... to seeing the film "Copenhagen" made from Michael Frayn's play as it deals very well with a fascinating meeting at a crucial point in recent history. I caught a transmission a decade ago, but it was during one of Christa's bouts of poor health, so I was a little distracted. I was still an IBM peon, too, so may well have been tired (rather than re-tired!)
Blimey! I've just realised I have yet to add the NUC to my little network diagram. Tut, tut. I'm also retiring the Laptop PC since all I've done with it for the last several months is keep it patched. And the wireless inkjet colour printer can vacate the premises, too. The last thing I printed on it was a Waitrose shopping voucher for stuff I didn't even want. And that was back in the bad old days of my Windows 8.1 Pro system.