as we approach the end of the fiscal year, it’s time for the upgrades at work… fresh cut new box of 100% recycled pencils, new workstations, and dual monitors all around – a great productivity booster. but for those who aren’t lucky enough to have hardware support for multiple monitors, or more likely those readers who wish to share a mouse and keyboard between multiple computers running different operating systems, there is a pretty slick option available – it’s software, and it’s open source (free).

synergy is a utility for windows, mac os x, and *nix environments that allows you to harness an array of monitors to provide seamless transitions between desktops of different machines. as an example, i set up an imac to the right of my monitor, installed the application on both computers, and told the server (running on the computer attached to the keyboard and mouse) the network name or ip of the other machines. i set up the virtual arrangement of my screens and that’s it. it even copies over your clipboard text when you move between the computers.

i’m totally stoked on this because as an avid mac and linux user, i am able to leverage the strengths of the various operating systems concurrently within the same work session, without losing a beat. i use terminal to ssh into my headless linux box, and adium (good stuff) instead of yahoo im on my pc, and with the recent development of my ipod not working, i can tap into the music library i have on itunes. anyone else in a similar situation should really look into it.