Ultrabook as a thin client for programming
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I think you would get better value by sticking a bloody great fan by the window and blow all the hot air out. I found working on a small screen and a dinky little keyboard so irritating I gave my (ASUS) ultra book to my daughter. However when the A/C breaks down I refuse to work as the sweat tends to make the keyboard all sticky and it is a bitch to clean.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
I'm right under the roof and the only windows I have are skylights. The roof gets hotter and hotter thorough the day. This was the smallest room in the apartment, that's why I made it my office, but it's a terrible choice during summer.
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I use a powerful PC to work with Visual Studio, SQL Server and so on (regular .NET stack). It is summer and it gets really hot in here (no AC). I was thinking about using my new balcony to work in the mornings (so that I can be outside). I'd also like to move out of my home office in the afternoon when it's boiling hot inside. I don't really need a laptop, I currently don't travel and don't need to work on the way. It's all about moving out of the office furnace. So I started looking at ultrabooks, because they are small (13.3) and lightweight. But it turns out that if I want something that will make Visual Studio & stuff work, I need to shell out a big sum. But I don't need this hardware for more than a couple hours a day, I'll still be working on my PC powerhorse. Then I thought... What if I bought an ultrabook with an energy saving mobile processor and only 4GB RAM and only a 128GB SSD (think of Asus Zenbook UX305) that's small and really light... And I used TeamViewer to connect to my uber PC upstairs and do my work that way? What do you think guys? Have any of you done that?
Before investing any money, I would borrow a laptop and an Ethernet/Wi-Fi hub and see how good the Wi-Fi connection is to your desktop. You may find that to be the limiting factor - slow screen updates can drive you crazy!
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack. --Winston Churchill
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I use a powerful PC to work with Visual Studio, SQL Server and so on (regular .NET stack). It is summer and it gets really hot in here (no AC). I was thinking about using my new balcony to work in the mornings (so that I can be outside). I'd also like to move out of my home office in the afternoon when it's boiling hot inside. I don't really need a laptop, I currently don't travel and don't need to work on the way. It's all about moving out of the office furnace. So I started looking at ultrabooks, because they are small (13.3) and lightweight. But it turns out that if I want something that will make Visual Studio & stuff work, I need to shell out a big sum. But I don't need this hardware for more than a couple hours a day, I'll still be working on my PC powerhorse. Then I thought... What if I bought an ultrabook with an energy saving mobile processor and only 4GB RAM and only a 128GB SSD (think of Asus Zenbook UX305) that's small and really light... And I used TeamViewer to connect to my uber PC upstairs and do my work that way? What do you think guys? Have any of you done that?
I've been doing this for years, but I've taken a somewhat different approach. The big fat powerful but noisy and heat-generating PC goes down in the basement, and on my desk is nothing but a rather modest, low-powered and completely quiet machine that acts as a dumb terminal. The heat-generating PC in the basement (i7 with 64GB of RAM) hosts about 12-15 virtual machines, and I use remote desktop to connect to any number of them from the machine on my desk. Initially that was a first-gen Surface Pro tablet connected to a USB dock that was used to hook up 3 monitors and my full-size keyboard and mouse (and other regular peripherals). The tablet is completely quiet and hardly throws any heat. With the full-size keyboard and multiple monitors, the experience is pretty much exactly like having the kick-ass computer right next to me. Everything's wired (wifi sucks). Even at 100mbps, screen redraws don't lag. Then I found a cheap 4K monitor at about the same time I found out that Intel's tiny NUC devices could do 4K (whereas my tablet can't). This is what I'm now using to remote into the virtual machines, so I'm doing 4K + 2 other monitors, regular mouse/keyboard, etc in total silence, no heat and very little power required. Every once in a while I grab my laptop and go outside and remote into the VMs to do some work. Since they're all intended to be remoted into, it doesn't matter if I do that from my office, from outside the house, or at a friend's place. I quite literally don't have anything of importance on whichever computer I'm using to remote into the VMs (except for any required motherboard driver and the like), so I never bother backing those up. The VMs themselves (just a bunch of virtual disk files, really) get backed up to a NAS on a regular basis, which in turn gets backed up separately.
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Before investing any money, I would borrow a laptop and an Ethernet/Wi-Fi hub and see how good the Wi-Fi connection is to your desktop. You may find that to be the limiting factor - slow screen updates can drive you crazy!
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack. --Winston Churchill
Daniel Pfeffer wrote:
see how good the Wi-Fi connection is to your desktop
Ethernet over power lines...even if it means running an extension cord outside if you don't have any power outlet outdoors. Mine can do 200mbps, which is faster than my actual wired LAN inside the house (100mbps).
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I've been doing this for years, but I've taken a somewhat different approach. The big fat powerful but noisy and heat-generating PC goes down in the basement, and on my desk is nothing but a rather modest, low-powered and completely quiet machine that acts as a dumb terminal. The heat-generating PC in the basement (i7 with 64GB of RAM) hosts about 12-15 virtual machines, and I use remote desktop to connect to any number of them from the machine on my desk. Initially that was a first-gen Surface Pro tablet connected to a USB dock that was used to hook up 3 monitors and my full-size keyboard and mouse (and other regular peripherals). The tablet is completely quiet and hardly throws any heat. With the full-size keyboard and multiple monitors, the experience is pretty much exactly like having the kick-ass computer right next to me. Everything's wired (wifi sucks). Even at 100mbps, screen redraws don't lag. Then I found a cheap 4K monitor at about the same time I found out that Intel's tiny NUC devices could do 4K (whereas my tablet can't). This is what I'm now using to remote into the virtual machines, so I'm doing 4K + 2 other monitors, regular mouse/keyboard, etc in total silence, no heat and very little power required. Every once in a while I grab my laptop and go outside and remote into the VMs to do some work. Since they're all intended to be remoted into, it doesn't matter if I do that from my office, from outside the house, or at a friend's place. I quite literally don't have anything of importance on whichever computer I'm using to remote into the VMs (except for any required motherboard driver and the like), so I never bother backing those up. The VMs themselves (just a bunch of virtual disk files, really) get backed up to a NAS on a regular basis, which in turn gets backed up separately.
That's an interesting setup. But why is your PC hot & noisy? :) Do those VMs run at the same time? All of them? Maybe you did not invest in a quiet case and good fans (like Thermalright Macho). My PC is noiseless unless I'm playing games.
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Before investing any money, I would borrow a laptop and an Ethernet/Wi-Fi hub and see how good the Wi-Fi connection is to your desktop. You may find that to be the limiting factor - slow screen updates can drive you crazy!
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack. --Winston Churchill
My PC is wired on a gigabit LAN and the ultrabook can use a 5GHz WiFi network, so that wouldn't be a problem. They don't need to be connected to each other directly.
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My PC is wired on a gigabit LAN and the ultrabook can use a 5GHz WiFi network, so that wouldn't be a problem. They don't need to be connected to each other directly.
I didn't explain myself clearly; I meant the Wi-Fi connection between your laptop and the PC. A fast Wi-Fi adapter does no good if the radio waves can't get through the walls or floors of your apartment. Re dandy72's suggestion of Ethernet over power - the actual speed depends on the quality of the electrical work in the house and many other issues. I have found that in my home - the speed is not high enough for HD-quality video from a server in one room to a client in another. If you can - test before spending large sums of money.
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack. --Winston Churchill
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That's an interesting setup. But why is your PC hot & noisy? :) Do those VMs run at the same time? All of them? Maybe you did not invest in a quiet case and good fans (like Thermalright Macho). My PC is noiseless unless I'm playing games.
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My CPU fan turns at 569rpm, the others are off until the computer determines they're needed. I would describe myself as a person with very sensitive hearing*, that's why I asked. * I can hear turned off Xbox One in instant-on mode from the mezzanine above. I hear my old secondary monitor's induction coil. I catch all the kind of quiet background noises that other people miss - yet, I can't hear my PC (using a Fractal Design case and Thermalright Macho radiator + fan + Silent profile from my ASUS motherboard).
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My CPU fan turns at 569rpm, the others are off until the computer determines they're needed. I would describe myself as a person with very sensitive hearing*, that's why I asked. * I can hear turned off Xbox One in instant-on mode from the mezzanine above. I hear my old secondary monitor's induction coil. I catch all the kind of quiet background noises that other people miss - yet, I can't hear my PC (using a Fractal Design case and Thermalright Macho radiator + fan + Silent profile from my ASUS motherboard).
Thing is, the fan isn't really the problem. It's the amount of heat generated by the CPU. That heat's gotta go somewhere, and all a fan can do is move hot air out of the case and into the room the computer is sitting in. Getting a "better" fan or case does nothing for the amount of heat produced. This isn't just this one PC, but all PCs I've had since CPUs started requiring fans to be mounted on them.