Trip 1, Lesson 1: There isn’t many things that K-mart isn’t able to fix!!
In my preparations for the trip to FNQ we had built three (3) new FatigueM8 compute units, taking our total builds at that point in time to fourteen. As part of the pre-installation checks I noticed that one of the software components hadn’t been configured. Real VNC isn’t part of our core stack and doesn’t effect the operation and collection of thee ECG, but it is critical for accessing the remote device for debugging. When connected to our network at build time, configuring Real VNC is easy; just establish an ssh session, connect to the device and enable it and then connect using thee Real VNC viewer, job done. However, when outside the office and connected to Telstra’s 3G/4G network it’s a little harder.
After scratching my head for couple of hours, and thinking a little outside of the box; I remembered that the compute unit has USB and HDMI ports, which means it can be setup as a computer. The only issue, I didn’t have a spare Keyboard, Mouse or Monitor in my carry on luggage. Enter K-Mart. K-Mart stocks a small range of computer peripherals and I was in luck, K-Mart Mount Isa to the recuse. With a new keyboard, mouse and HDMI capable I headed back to the hotel; Using the HDMI port on the television I was able to turn the FatigueM8 compute unit into a mini computer, login and configure Real VNC to enable remote connections. Problem Solved.
In only a weeks’ time this effort to setup remote debugging would prove worth every moment of effort to setup (more on that later).
