SynergyKM

Most readers here will probably know Synergy already, it's a tool that lets you share one keyboard and mouse between two machines. The machines can run Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, OS X etc. in any combination. I don't always realize it but this little tool is as integrated into my work environment as the computers themselves, I simply could not live with out it.

Till now getting it going on the Mac was a major pain, it involved all sorts of silly files being copied by hand etc, was hard to make auto start etc. Enter SynergyKM, it's a GUI to Synergy, has a System Preferences plugin and sits nicely in the menu bar (optionally) showing your current status. It supports auto discovery of your current location via Bonjour otherwise you can just select your location like the normal network location tool on the Mac. It supports configuring both client and server mode.

3 Comments

HI, also South African born here, living in New York for the moment.

I don't seem to be able to get Synergy to work between my Mac mini and a Windows XP PC. Do you know how to change the port that Synergy uses on the Mac?

The PC connects to a Linksys router with wire while the Mac does through the airport express wirelessly. I definitely have the IP addresses and screen names correct.

I want this to work to be in computer nirvana!

Thanks in advance and enjoy London (New York looks like London today!)

I can't get it to work with an XP laptop. Docs are practically nonexistent and it doesn't look like it's being maintained.

No matter what I do the connection is "forcefully rejected" by the Mac server. I guess it's back to the command line. :-(

This happened to me over and over - make sure you click "Apply" in the bottom right of the SynergyKM preferences pane and it starts the server. After that all worked fine.

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