This week I discovered a cool piece of software that allows me to control two macs with one keyboard, and one mouse. Brilliant if you’re a geek!
Like any good developer, I’ve got mission control set up on my desk - my MacBook desktop is split across a dual screen, and I have another screen for my Mac mini (which acts as my development web server, my music server and my VOIP phone). Using two sets of keyboards and mice is a pain, and KVM switches are awkward, particularly as I remove my laptop frequently.
No fear, Synergy is here. This open-source solution allows you to arrange your monitors as one virtual desktop. Simply move the mouse cursor towards the other screen, and as it reaches the edge, it transfers control over to the other machine. You can even copy & paste between the two machines! The machines must be connected to a local network to work.
It’s a doddle to set up Synergy up on the Mac as there is an application called SynergyKM that includes a Preference Pane. Synergy works on Windows and Unix too, so I could use it to control Windows XP when testing web sites in Internet Explorer.. but now I have Parallels installed on my Mac, I don’t need another machine.
If you need to control more than two machines, that are all Macs, then there is also a similar freeware application called Teleport.
Geeky but brilliant
That is seriously cool!
Something you didn’t point quite make clear that it sounds like this will do is this: you can plug the keyboard and mouse into the desktop machine, and then all you need to do with your laptop is put it on the same network. Right? So only need to plug in power.
Yep. Of course. I can see how this is most people would use it.
In my case, my desk is glass and my mouse refuses to work properly, so oddly I prefer to use my laptop keyboard and trackpad. Wonder if I can still get one of those old mice with a rollerball?
Synergy is awesome! At my last work (science company) we had Linux and windows desktops and I used to use this (with my powerbook) to have one keyboard/mouse shared between for linux, windows and OS X. Just don’t use windows last he server as it seems to have some stability issues (windows that it, not synergy). It did freak out management a bit though when they sat down at my desk.
Interesting - thanks.
I’m a big fan of Badly Drawn Boy and About a Boy. You??