Synergy (the software program, not the buzzword)


I just installed and was playing with Synergy. It’s a very cool program that allows me to take advantage of the fact that I sit with three screen at my desk (one is my MacBook, one is my “work”laptop running Windows, and the third is my Gentoo server). Now, instead of switching mice and keyboards I can access all three as if they were a single computer with three different monitors. Basically, with my Windows computer in the middle, I can access my MacBook by moving the mouse beyond the border of the Windows screen on the left and access my Gentoo server by moving the mouse beyond the border of the Windows screen on the right. It’s very fluid and responsive despite that all three are using wireless currently.

Because my life is not boring enough, I made a video that shows it in action…

  1. #1 by Peter on November 8, 2007 - 5:05 pm

    Nifty! Is it hard to install?

  2. #2 by Andrew on November 9, 2007 - 9:17 am

    No, it’s not. It’s a little different than some programs to configure (and the OS X version seems much easier) but it’s fairly straightforward. The problems is that to get it to work, I need to plunk down my laptop. Run the Synergy service. Then run the Synergy client on both the laptop and the Linux box. I wish I could instead make an encrypted call (like just using SSH) to the other boxes to autostart them when the main server starts.

    Still pretty fun though.

  3. #3 by Bryan on November 29, 2007 - 11:18 pm

    haha….ok, my life is not boring enough so I had to watch your video that you made because your life is not boring enough. Well Ok, i just watched 10 seconds of it because I have been using synergy for a little over a year now. It’s a good program…except when someone unplugs your internet cable 🙁

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