QuickSynergy

Recently I started using a really powerful tool. Not so much in the amount of features available but in the way it allows me to be more efficient.

I do my job mainly from a laptop. As most of you will know typing and moving your mousepointer with the mousepad is not what you would call ‘ideal’.
Keeping in mind that my job involves lots of typing, as I’m also a happy coder , RSI is waiting to happen.

Now how does this powerful tool help? As I do my job mainly on my laptop I started carrying a spare keyboard and mouse with my laptop to allow for easier typing and mousing.
That is no longer necessary as I have gotten to know ‘QuickSynergy’. This tool runs on Linux and, lucky me, I am running Ubuntu on my laptop and on my desktop.
I have QuickSynergy installed on both my laptop and on the desktop system, iI have done so by using the Synaptics Package manager.

QuickSynergy is a relatively simple tool. It allows me to use the keyboard and mouse from the ‘server’ on the ‘client’.

My desktop system has a keyboard and regular mouse connected. Every morning when I come into the office I start QuickSynergy on the desktop, set it up as host and do the same on my laptop but then in set it up in client mode.
See the screenshots. Left is my desktop, right is the laptop.

When the client and server have connected I just move my mouse beyond the left of the desktop’ screen and the mousepointer appears on my laptop.
Fortunately the focus of the keyboard is also transferred to where the mouse is located. So having the mousepointer on the laptop enables typing on the laptop and having the mousepointer on the desktop enables typing on the desktop.

There is also some basic Clipboard info transfer from client to server and vice versa which is very handy. You cannot drag windows from one machine to the other so copy/pasting information bidirectionally is very useful.

Give it a try, its a great tool!
If its not shipped with your distro, see http://code.google.com/p/quicksynergy/