Synergy or any other kb/mouse sharing program~

[ClassicRed]

Quick question/s before I install this -- Im getting my new monitor today so I looked up Synergy -- I asked a IRL friend of mine about it last week and he said with WoW Synergy made the mouse go crazy every time he moved mouse over from one monitor to the other...(I cant for the life of me remember what program he recommended and he's at work atm so cant ask X3) I want to know if anyone has Synergy installed with FFXI (i play in windowed mode) and has had any similiar or other issues?


Or can anyone recommend another program?~

[Cephius]

Synergy worked great for me when I played FFXI, I had no issues when playing with the mouse going crazy. I could see problems happening if you run full screen though, if you run windowed it should be fine. I think Ultramon is simliar, but it doesn't let you cross systems like Synergy does.

[The_OG_Nelta]

I didn't know there was something like this.. Thats awesome!

Can someone explain how the cross system works? If I have 2 computers, one is dual monitor, and the other is mainly just for music, would it act like my 3rd monitor?

[Spekkio]

as your mouse hits the designated boundary of your screen (for example when i use it, when it hits the right hand side of my screen) the cursor is hidden on that desktop and made visible on the other computer's screen. in addition, the primary computer's keyboard is usable on whatever computer the cursor appears on. i find it handy for using 1 kb/mouse for both my windows desktop and my linux machine. unfortunately i've never gotten encryption to work for it so i generally keep it off. if you figure out how to get it working, i'd love to know.

[Avanarius]

I'm interested in this program as well, and just for clarity this is done entirely over network and both computers need synergy installed correct?

Too bad april fools already went by; this would brew a pretty good prank to play on my co-workers.

[Cephius]

I didn't know there was something like this.. Thats awesome!

Can someone explain how the cross system works? If I have 2 computers, one is dual monitor, and the other is mainly just for music, would it act like my 3rd monitor?

Yes, it would be like you have 3 monitors, you can move seamlessly across them and control your second machine using the keyboard and mouse that's hooked up to your first. You can even copy and paste your clipboard (not files and such yet, but supposedly that's in the works) across systems.

To set it up, you basically have a client (the secondary computer) and the server (the main computer you're using) and it uses computer names to discover across your LAN. Enter computer names, define which screen is where (ie, Computer 1 is to the left of Computer 2) and it'll take care of the rest. You can have Synergy start with your computer so you don't have to start the service on your second computer. You can even hook up more computers, if you want. I found it great for having another computer handling music, IMs, and browser windows while I game on my main system.

I never found encryption to be that big of a need since it's talking across your local LAN, not over the internet. It's still a risk, though.

[ClassicRed]

Havent used this yet but here's a 'How-To:' for Synergy~

How-To: Share your keyboard and mouse in realtime with Synergy

[ClassicRed]

Interestingly enough I cant get Synergy to work <.<; Atleast not by the 'how-to' :3 keeps saying 'Error - Server name ' is invalid' or 'Error - The screen name 'blah' is not in the layout.' D: fubar~

[Cephius]

That guide is a bit outdated, its from 2005 and the newest version 1.3.1 came out in 2006. Make sure you define both screens on the server (press the + sign to add a screen, clicking OK exits you from the configuration) using the computer names of each system. Also don't forget to define each side... if you put "Computer 1 is right of Computer 2" and forget to say "Computer 2 is left of Computer 1" it won't work. You need to define it both ways.

[Spekkio]

iirc, i just keyed in the hostname of each computer as the title, then set up the relationship pair as ceph mentioned above and rolled with it. reason i'm concerned about security is that i use it to link my computers on a corporate network and i'd rather not risk my passwords to someone getting an infected computer on the network. yes, i'm probably paranoid, but better to be paranoid than owned. ^^

[ClassicRed]

I got it :D ty guyz~ I just had to have the 'server name' on client side be the server IP~....<.< w/e works!

[Kurai]

Before I converted my second computer to a linux/media box, I used synergy as I was too lazy to deal with a second keyboard/mouse. Synergy was an excellent program for what it claims to do.

[Spekkio]

why not use synergy to connect w/ your linux box? it's really quite easy, especially if you use the windows box as the server.