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Mac Apps/Scripts

Cross OS keyboard sharing with Synergy

I’ve tested Synergy at work for some time now but the current release is the only one I’ve found to be stable enough to recommend which is why I’m posting a blog update now.

What does Synergy do?

Quite simply it shares one mouse and one keyboard so they can be used across up to three computers simultaneously.

Say you have a PC, Mac and Linux computer sitting side by side, Synergy will allow you to control all of these using a single mouse and keyboard.

Synergy also allows you to copy clipboard text from one computer to the other. Very useful for those times you have a website url open on one computer and need to open the same on another.

Copying and pasting of files isn’t possible yet – but you never know what the future may bring.

I’ve tested Synergy on Windows 7 and OSX 10.6 using the following 1.4.10 Beta releases:

Windows7

OSX 10.6

I use my PC as the Synergy server (the keyboard and mouse I want to use is attached to this computer) and the Mac as Synergy client (the computer I want to control with the server keyboard and mouse).

Of course it’s possible to swap so it’s the other way around but this is the way I have it configured at the moment so I’ve written my config instructions to reflect that. If you manage to configure your PC/Mac in the setup I’ve outlined you should have no problem getting Synergy re-configured the way you prefer further down the road.

Ok so once you get Synergy installed on your PC you’ll get a dialog box similar to the below:

Synergy PC Server Setup

Choose the “Server (new setup)” radio button then click on “Finish”

You’ll then see the main Synergy admin window:

Synergy PC (Server) Config

At which point you’ll click on the “Configure Server” button to get access to the “Server Configuration” window:

PC (Server) Config 2

Drag the monitor icon to the relevant space the Mac occupies on your desk then double-click on it to add a screen name and alias for the Mac (the Synergy client) using your current Mac host name. I’ve given an example from my configuration below.

For “Screen name”: MyMac

For “Aliases”: MyMac.local

Once you’ve populated both fields, click on “Add” first then “OK” to save your changes.

PC (Server) Config

Once changes are saved and you’re back at the Synergy admin dialog click on the “Start” button to start the Synergy server service making it ready to accept a connection from the Mac (client).

If you want the Synergy server service to start each time you restart your PC (I know I do) select “Edit – Settings” in the Synergy admin dialog and enable both “Start Synergy after logging in” and “Automatically start server/client” followed by “OK” and “Apply” back in the Synergy admin window.

Synergy-PC-Auto-Start

Now swap to your Mac and install Synergy on that. Immediately after installing you’ll see a “Setup Synergy” dialog like the one you got on your PC.

Mac (Client) Setup

Select “Client (Add to Setup)” in that dialog box and click on the “Done” button. You’ll then see the Macs Synergy admin dialog:

At which point you need to add the name of your PC (the Synergy Server) – Mine is called “MyPC” then I clicked on the “Start” button to initiate the Mac client connection.

If you’ve successfully configured Synergy you should now be able to move the mouse between your PC and Mac screens seamlessly. You should also be able to copy and paste text between both computers.

Don’t forget to drag the Synergy icon into your dock on your Mac to make it easily accessible.

Press the CTRL button on your keyboard and mouse click on the Synergy icon then enable “Keep in Dock” and “Open at Login” to make sure the Synergy client auto starts once you next login to your Mac.

Synergy Auto Launch

Hope you have some success with it – and don’t forget to donate if you’d like to support Synergy.

* Update – I indicated above that you should be able to swap your Synergy client/server configuration so that the Mac is the Server and PC is the client but I’ve since found out that this is not possible (at least not on the OS version’s I’ve tried above). So you’ll need to try Synergy on a newer version of OSX or swap your Mac keyboard and mouse to your PC if you prefer using them to your PC’s keyboard and mouse.

The argument against HTML5 – (for now)

The recent controversy surrounding Apple dropping Flash support from some of it’s product range has highlighted numerous shortcomings in the browser plugin, along the lines of performance, reliability and security.

Apple publicly criticised the plugin – recommending  HTML5 to Joe Public instead, but were they right to drop support for Flash, possibly damaging their up to now close relationship with Adobe?

In my opinion no. Here’s why:

HTML5  is still a draft standard and will continue to be so for some time to come. Due to the fact that the HTML5 feature set has not been standardized yet – web browser developers are hampered deciding which HTML5 features to support in their new web browser releases. This means that it may not be possible to view some parts of a webpage coded in HTML5 depending on which web browser and OS you have installed.

Standards also give web developers the assurance that the code they use to design a web page should work across a range of web browsers – in an ideal world that’s the way it should happen. In reality this doesn’t happen – different browsers display webpages differently. OK – but do we need Apple adding another layer of complexity to web developers jobs by forcing them to decide which browser(s) they’ll concentrate their coding and testing efforts on?

Instead of the best all round browser gaining the biggest market share the end user will probably end up suffering – they’ll be forced to choose a browser that supports the most HTML5 features. All because Apple wanted to conserve battery life on their mobile devices…

HTML5 – It should be great – but I don’t think its ready for prime-time just yet.

Flash

Friendlier Claris it – Strange name/great function

Friendlier Claris It – A bunch of Entourage scripts with a preposterous name which provide quite useful functions…

If you work in an office and use Entourage you’ll know a lot of extra work’s involved if you want to sort e-mail and jpg attachments. That’s where Friendlier Claris It scripts come in. The scripts allow you to sort messages and save message attachments highlighted in Entourage by pressing a predefined hotkey.

Saving attachments is the most useful feature of those scripts in my opinion so I’m going to focus on that.

In the original version of Friendlier Claris It which can be found here the script would remove attachments and save them to whatever location was defined in the config script. It would also update the message(s) the script was executed against with the location attachments were saved to – useful but there are a lot of people who would like to keep their e-mail and attachments intact.

I’ve modified the original version to still save attachments but leave the messages you run the script against intact. The modification also includes an automatic flagging of the message(s) to indicate which ones you ran the script against.

Simply copy the zip contents into “/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Entourage Script Menu Items” and from the Entourage script menu run “Change FCI Preferences” to choose where you want to save attachments to.

At the end of the config if asked to “Sort unified e-mail by e-mail account” or “File group contacts into subfolders” answer no to both prompts. The rest of the config setup is self explanatory.

Note that even though the config script indicates mail attachments will be removed, in my version of the scripts this will not happen. Once you have the configuration part done hit CTRL + X on a highlighted e-mail for the juice.

The scripts can also be executed against public folder content.

I hope this will be useful to some of those Entourage users out there.

Don’t forget to donate to Friendlier Claris It’s author if you find the script useful and please find out where he came up with that name – Friendlier Claris It???

Entourage Script Menu

The Blog of Martin Birrane