Configure synergy for OSX the easy way

I’m quite fond of a free program called Synergy, which allows you to share a keyboard and mouse between several computers. In case you’re wondering why someone would be operating more than one computer at a time: because it’s cool. Really, if you need to ask you’re so uncool it’s scary. You should probably go and iron something.

Synergy is cool because you can even run different operating systems and still have just 1 mouse and keyboard to control them. Plus, it makes your office look like the bridge of the freakin’ Enterprise and if that doesn’t get you laid I will eat my laptop. Really, chicks dig multiple monitor setups. Just trust me on this.

It’s free software and you can get it here:

https://synergy2.sourceforge.net/

Unfortunately, it was written and maintained by the sort of geeks who think nothing of starting and configuring software via the command line, which is about as userfriendly as a good swift kick in the meat-and-two-veg department. The Windows package is ok, but for OSX (That’s Mac to you and me) configuration is a bit of a nightmare. What you need is a GUI: a Graphical User Interface. This basically adds a menu to the software, making it easier to work with.

There are 3 GUI’s available. 2 of them didn’t work for me.

1. OSX Synergy GUI canbe found at:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/osxsynergygui/

It does work, but you have to restart it manually each time you want to use it. Which more or less defeats the purpose of using Synergy, since you’ll still need a second mouse and keyboard to do that. Plus, it’s alpha-software.

2. Synergy OSX, didn’t work at all for me although it looked very pretty.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/osxsynergygui/

3. SynergyKM: This is the best by far. It contains Synergy itself so you won’t have to install that first. It’s also to be found on SourceForge:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/synergykm

So… get number 3. But not 2. Or 1. Or 1 AND 2. That would just be silly. Just get 3. The bottom one. Yeah. That one rocks.

This has been a public service announcement for fellow ner… cool people.

Tags: configure synergy, gui for synergy, share keyboard mouse, software kvm, synergy