I remember hearing about Synergy many years ago as a way to share a keyboard/mouse between multiple computers with different operating systems sitting on your desk. This would have been a dream come true for me back when I had a Windows PC next to my Mac at previous jobs, but nowadays I tend to use Windows only through virtualization software, so Mac OS X is always underneath.
It used to be that I’d have my MacBook on my desk next to my left monitor, and I’d lean over and use the keyboard and touchpad for various tasks, testing web sites in other browsers mainly, but it also comes in handy when your main Mac is beachballing it, but now…
teleport has completely changed the way I work!
I was about to dig into Synergy when I came across teleport, which is pretty much the same thing, but Mac OS X specific, and since I don’t need the cross-platform stuff, I skipped Synergy and grabbed teleport.
I’m basically controlling two completely separate computers with one set of controls. I can jump between them by just sliding the mouse to the edge of the screen. The power this provides is simply amazing… really, I can’t think of another thing that’s changed the way I work so dramatically in recent history.
If you’ve got two computers on your desk, look into Synergy or teleport. It’s that magic stuff you hear about from time to time…
Update 2010-07-30: See Also: Setting Up Encryption for teleport 1.0.1