Real World Computing

Seeing as we're in isolation, we seem to be spending a whole lot more time in Microsoft Teams -- and of course, Microsoft seems to have picked up the pace of teams updates as well.  One of the things that Zoom, (one of Teams' competitors) has that is enviable is a "sense of fun".  Zoom has these great backgrounds and they have some fun filters too. In this post, I wanted to look at how to get these options in teams.  Bear in mind that Teams is always changing and that some of these features are already being developed for the platform, so you probably won't have to use these workarounds for long. The Built-In Backgrounds Yesterday (15 April 2020), Teams started up with a new feature; Background effects. To get to these, simply click on the three dots while in a video conference and choose Show Background Effects . This opens up a selection of backgrounds in the right hand panel.  The first bunch are suitable for corporate meetings and include "

KVMs and Multiple Computers In the old days before we had computers that spanned multiple monitors, we sometimes had multiple computers on our desks. We had dedicated switching hardware to do this called KVM (Keyboard/Video/Mouse) switches. These days, apart from PC setups, which are mostly done via cloning technology these days, there's not really a reason to have multiple computers on your desk.  At least, not until COVID-19 forced everyone to work from home and some of us found a need to switch between our home and work laptops with ease.  Not really wanting to purchase special hardware and extra cables, I looked for an alternative solution and found that Microsoft already had one. It's called Mouse without Borders. In this post, I just want to talk about getting it setup.  Installing Mouse without Borders There's quite a few options around for Virtual KVMs but why would you pay for one when Microsoft provides one of the best for free? Mouse wi