If you are a web developer you are forced to run multiple operating systems, to check your code and design in as many browsers as possible. Well, the main problem is the IE – as it always do strange things….

This can be done using a virtual machine, or multiple computers. The first case can be done using some software like VMware, VirtualBox os VirtualPC.

The second case is when you have more than one computers.

If you are like me – I have a G4 Mac and an HP – I think the second solution is better as for G4 only VirtualPC works and is in emulated mode, not virtualised, so is way too slow.

Ok, so I setup my G4 in my front and the HP in the left – let’s work. After some time (short time) I managed to mix the 2 mouses, type on the HP keyboard wondering why my mac is not working and so on…not good.

After a small search on the internet a found Synergy 2. ” 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).”

It is cross-platform so it can run on Os X, windows and linux.

You have to setup a server on one computer, a client on the other, or others, and you will be able to use the main’s computer mouse and keyboard on the other one.

For Os X it’s a a little hard to do this as you have to configure a file and run the software form the terminal. In a next post I’ll show how to bring this on your applications folder as any other app, being able to add it to dock or make a link to it on the desktop.

So after I downloaded the software I put it in my application folder, I downloaded the software for windows on my HP and installed it.

The configuration file is pretty simple, the instructions on the site and on the sample config are very clear, the only thing that needs to be said is that in the config file on the hostname for os x you have to add a “.local”, so it looks something like “powerbook.local”

below is my config file:

section: screens
mobilegarth:
powerbook.local:
end
 
section: links
mobilegarth:
right = powerbook.local
powerbook.local:
left  = mobilegarth
end
 
section: aliases
 
end
 
section: options
switchDelay = 350
end

mobilegarth is the HP.

after this you need to start the terminal, and run

/Applications/synergy/synergys --config synergy.conf -f

the “-f” will keep the application in front, so you can see what messages it returns.

All this being set go to windows computer, start the synergy client, put the server name “powerbook” in this case and this should be all.

Moving the mouse on the left side of the screen will trigger the switch and your mouse and keyboard will work on the other computer, until you come back on the right side this time to your main computer.

As I said before in one of the next posts I will show you how to setup a “shortcut” to run this as any other normal application without the need of terminal.

Let me know your thoughts.