Adam Perfect

General

Control multiple computers with one mouse and keyboard, without a KVM

Reading about Thomas Baekdal's cool new home office setup, one of the comments pointed to a cool app that lets you share your mouse and keyboard with other computers (Windows, Mac and Linux) called Synergy. You basically run a server on the computer that has the mouse and keyboard you want to share, then a client on the other computer(s) and it's then as simple as moving your mouse off the edge of one screen and onto another. I'd seen apps doing this just for Macs, but I have a Windows PC and an iMac, so this is great! No more do I have to use the crappy Mighty Mouse or Mac keyboard (I know it has its fans, but it's FAR too small for my liking). I was getting ready to order an extra Logitech MX Revolution and MS Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 for use on the Mac so as long as Synergy doesn't fail me I've just saved myself a bunch of money. Only thing I've noticed so far is that it tends to hang briefly every minute or two on the Mac (client), then catches up. Hopefully there's a bit of config somewhere to help iron this out as that could get annoying. EDIT: Forgot to mention: it also lets you copy & paste between machines too. Very nifty!

Written by Adam on

Adam is a Director of User Experience by day and photographer as time allows.

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