synergy - two computers; one keyboard & mouse
Published by on February 7th, 2005
Synergy : KVM without the hardware - well almost.
Synergy offers a new concept in controlling multiple computers from a single keyboard and mouse, without additional hardware.
Compatible with most operating systems (Win, Mac & Unix), the server application and client use TCP/IP in order to pass keyboard input and mouse coordinate information from hardware connected to the ’server’ machine, to those running the clients.
Synergy lets you easily share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, without special hardware. It’s intended for users with multiple computers on their desk since each system uses its own monitor(s).
Redirecting the mouse and keyboard is as simple as moving the mouse off the edge of your screen. Synergy also merges the clipboards of all the systems into one, allowing cut-and-paste between systems. Furthermore, it synchronizes screen savers so they all start and stop together and, if screen locking is enabled, only one screen requires a password to unlock them all. Learn more about how it works.
This is a promising little utility, though has a good few more miles to travel before it could be used with full confidence.
I played with it for a couple of days using my G4 desktop as the server and my powerbook as the client. Transfer of control between machines was smooth and usable 90% of the time - the rest was a little glitchy, but it always settled down. A couple of times things went distinctly crazy and I lost mouse/keyboard control over both machines for a little while, but killing both client and server solved the problem immediately.
One slightly irritating flaw is the cursor on the server machine flickers in the centre as the mouse is controlling the client machine - nothing more than distracting, however.
Synergy is certainly worth a look.
