Smarterware

Simulate Office Presence with Skype and VNC

Former cubicle jockey Jonathon Wilson now works from home, but it's almost exactly as if he's at his desk at the office. In the comments of my recent article on working remotely, Jonathon explains his unconventional setup:

I still have my computer at work, in my office cube (right in the middle of things). I set up a webcam there along with speakers. I have second cam at home, and I simply Skype in to my own cube at work. Skype can be configured to auto-answer, if desired, so my 'cube' Skype simply picks up when I dial in...

... for hours at a time.

I also pipe my home desktop onto my cube's monitor (using VNC). This combination is very close to actually being there in the cube. People walk right up to my cube and talk to me, just like they do when I'm in the office. Because my code's up on the screen, we can work through issues there at my desk just like normal. Similarly, people glancing at my screen can see exactly what I'm doing (coding), so there's never a question of whether I'm actually doing my work from home.

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