One netbook to rule them ALL!

For the last month after purchasing a netbook for professional and personal needs, I was having issues with it sharing space on my desk with my tower’s dual monitors, keyboard, and mouse.  Having created a network over my Wifi router hub, I’d managed to set up a file repository as well as my scanner/printer/fax available.

But there was the issue of two mice sharing the same pad.  Things were looking so ridiculous I’d thought of creating the equivalent of ‘lovechair porn’…two wireless mice caught in compromising positions.

It’s a sick world out there, no sense to make it sicker on my desk.

I had a dream, based on what I’d seen a decade ago in The Matrix. One chair, one set of input devices, monitors from here to Uranus, everything seamlessly integrated.

I found that today in Synergy. Unfortunately I got lost in the instructions, and low and behold a blogger wrote a tutorial that I could follow.

Literally having it open in one monitor and making changes in the other as I read along, I was able to use my netbook’s keyboard for both my computers by either moving the mouse off the screen into the next or assigning hot keys…in less than three minutes!

The biggest thing though is ’seamlessness’.  How much a program “does it’s thing” and makes you believe it’s all magic.  Going from one machine to another is seamless.  In fact, I made it a point of seeing just how far I could push things, crossing my mouse from one screen to the other machine’s screen.

It takes a few microseconds for the transition and control to take place, and honestly…until I tried forcing it to ‘hiccup’ and lag, it never did during normal use.

It’s when I moved back and forth 5 times between screens in one second that I discovered the lag…and let’s face it, if you’re THAT indecisive and hyper then you really need to get away from the computers for awhile.

While Synergy does NOT allow drag and drop between screens, it DOES allow standard copy/paste across systems!  One work around I have is creating a link on all my systems’ desktops to a shared folder.

At the moment I’m running all of my communications on the P3 1.6Mhz 256Mg box on two monitors, as well as Sims2 off an nVidia GeForceMX 4000.  My netbook: MS Office 2010 Beta.

Which leads to this disclaimer:

I can’t help you and I’m not implying or recommend anyone use this software.  Again, I have NO experience in networking other than recent self education connecting a wifi router and RTFMing!

Unless you’re comfortable with the possibility of your computer being reduced to a rock due to your actions…which is what all geeks face and sometimes in fact end up with…you shouldn’t think twice on what you’ve read here.

I never recommend ANYBODY ask anyone else for help.  Not their children, not the person next door, and certainly not the person at a computer shop.  Unless it’s a matter of returning it under warranty, I feel everyone’s responsible for their own box at one time or another.

I do recommend research, education, accountability, and pro-activeness.

That being said, it’s time for me to get back to Uber productivity using my new toy built out of old parts recycled! Feeling jaunty enough to peruse my finer garments and don some equestrian apparel when next I publish!

…Life Onwards