Synergy

huanix — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 03:15:45 +0000

Wow. It is a wonderful day when I stumble across a new sofware package that delights me as much as something like compiz/beryl or Joomla!, but I have found my gem of the month. Synergy is an open source tool available for Linux, Mac, and Windows that allows you to seamlessly use one mouse and keyboard to control multiple computers at one time. This works great for the nerd staring at 3 or 4 monitors each attatched to different computers. After writing a simple config file, you simply move the mouse off your current screen onto the next computer (through the network) and you’re suddenly controlling another computer – no KVM buttons or anything!

Synergy is available through sourceforge:
http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/

Check out some youtube vids:
7 Screen Synergy w/ Mac/Windows/Linux
Synergy – one mouse 2 different computer / os’s

Lazy Saturday with Suse

huanix — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 22:22:50 +0000

Today I pulled out a copy of Suse 10.0 and installed it on one of the desktops I’ve got laying around. I had forgotten how user-friendly and well developed Suse is. I started running the install after reading in several places that the most stable MySQL setups are built from source on Suse machines. I have also been using Ubuntu for so long that I was sort of worried that I was getting out of “Linux” and into “Ubuntu”.
I started hangingout at #planet.mysql – which is odd for me – I am a complete novice there, surrounded by the Gods of MySQL, but I look forward to hearing what they have to say and try to keep my mouth shut!
Still frustrated with apache includes. It’s rare that I give up on a problem, and I haven’t worked on my apache2 include problem in awhile. I’m wondering if the source build that I’m doing on Suse will make things work better? FYI – if you missed it, I kept getting syntax errors when I tried to do server side includes in Apache.
I have discovered the MySQL 5.1 manual (direct link)is actually a great read – I would reccommend it. I’m only through the first couple hundred pages, but it’s a page-turner.. geek style.
As a side note, my wonderful wife, (who is a “Linux rejectionist” ) has been running Vista RC2 on her 3.4GHz, 2GB system (we call it the “pink computer”). I have found a few things I like, and a few things I disliked about the setup – keep in mind that it’s RC2, not the retail release!

Likes:
- The widget panel is nice – I like watching our photos, and the CPU/Memory widget.
- The Windows Experience Rating is a nice tool – As a non-gamer, I was not aware that my NVidia 6200 was such a bottleneck.
- The GUI is intuitive. This may be a result of my being a OS enthusiast, but I generally knew how to get what I wanted without having to search for help.

Dislikes:
- Constantly having to tell Windows what could or couldn’t run. Security should be a system-level function, not a user process.
- The NVidia drivers were difficult to install in Vista. The UI does a lot of hand-holding (which can be good), but the installer didn’t work with the driver files, so they had to be manually inserted (with “have disk”). Vista didn’t like my tinkering with the drivers either- if I removed my device driver, Vista would replace it with its own version. Good for a novice, irritating for a geek.
- The Office 2007 Beta Powerpoint is attractive, and I like the menus, but the type-rate reminds me of a 486. I’m not sure what’s going on with the internals, but typing in powerpoint is laggy and makes me think of typing on a remote system with a bad connection.

huanix » Vista

Synergy

Lazy Saturday with Suse