Share a keyboard and mouse with multiple PCs with this handy, free utility.

I’m an SEO working on multiple monitors and usually two PCs - my laptop and desktop. For a long time I either juggled with a keyboard and a mouse for each or I just struggled on the laptop with the finger mouse and the cramped little keyboard.

No more. I have found a really terrific and FREE (and that’s one of my favorite words) piece of software that allows you to share your keyboard and mouse with two or more PCs through an IP address.

It’s called Synergy and it’s simple to set up and use. All you need to have is a home network and know how to get the IP address of the PC whose keyboard and mouse you will share (hint - In Windows XP just hit Start -> Run -> cmd -> ipconfig and hit the enter key).

Install Synergy on both PCs and configure them. On the host PC, you have to enter some information like which side of the host PC the client will be located and screen names. On the client, you just pop in the host’s IP address and hit the Start button.

I’ve been using this neat utility for several months and it’s been a gift from Heaven. Every so often I have a network glitch that makes it lose the connection between the two, but overall it has been terrific.

Heck, this baby will even sync the screen savers on the PCs and allows cutting and pasting between them.

Synergy is open source and released under the GNU Public License (GPL). It’s available for Windows, Linux and Mac systems supporting TCP/IP networking, though the site indicates that the Mac version is incomplete.

Hope you find it as useful as I have!