Ok, so i’m kind of a noob at this Linux madness, but here goes: This week, I set up Synergy between my Macbook (running Leopard) and my home brew Linux machine (running Ubuntu 8.10 – Intrepid Ibex).

For those of you who have no idea what I just spewed out with my keyboard, Synergy lets you share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems. Its actually ridiculously seemless, just like running dual monitors on one machine.

So, lets get down to the How-to. FIrst, we’ll configure the Mac, as that will act as my server. This means we will be using the mouse/keyboard connected to this machine. For this, I downloaded a nifty tool called SynergyKM, which adds the Synergy setup to your system preferences, as well as displays the connection status in the menu bar.

Once you’ve installed it, run SynergyKM through the System Preferences window. Under the General tab, hit the “share my keyboard and mouse” radio button.

Next you’ll then need to add the screen names of the computers you will be using. These names will be the host names of the said machines.

To find the host name of a Mac, open the sharing preference pane in System Prefs. Whatever you see in the Computer Name section is what you’ll name that computer in Synergy. For the Linux machine, just run the command hostname. This can be run on the Mac as well, but may be appended with the line .local.

Finally, make sure the screens are in the order you want them to be. I have my Mac on the right, but its your preference. Just drag the screens and pick your poison.

Its basically the same deal on the linux box, only instead of synergyKM, I used a program called QuickSynergy.

To install it, just follow the usual command line procedure:

./configure
make
make install

You will need the GTK 2.0 and libglade-2.0 development packges installed on your computer in order to achieve a successful compilation.

Next, slect the Client tab on the QuickSynergy main window. Fill in the field with the server’s (in this case the mac) IP address/hostname and the click Start. It may take a couple seconds to kick off, but you should be able to rock the mac mouse and keyboard on both computers now!

Finally, synergy by default will not run on startup on the Linux machine. In order to do so, go to system/preferences/sessions. Add a new startup program. Call it whatever you want, and make it call the following command, just replace the x’s with the server ip:

synergyc -f xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

In case that was all total freaking gibberish to you try the video or links below, or just comment on this post. I’ll be happy to help you if I can:

http://quicksynergy.sourceforge.net/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/synergykm

Special thanks to my boy Tomas for showing me the ways of the Synergy Ninja.
_Rob

… Its gonna be a loooooooooooong paddle.

This past Saturday, me and nine other brave souls from AE made it out to Claddah’s in the Southside to have our heads shaved for the St. Baldrick’s charity event.

It was an awesome time. They had live music, beer, and droves of people shaving their heads. Definitely a very cool way to raise some dough for an important issue. They let me shave my hair into a mohawk (I’m the second from the right), and even died it green for me!

St. Baldrick’s is the world’s largest volunteer-driven fundraising event for childhood cancer research. Thousands of volunteers shave their heads in solidarity of children with cancer, while requesting donations of support from friends and family. In 2008, St. Baldrick’s events were hosted in 48 U.S. states, in addition to Australia, Bermuda, Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Iran, Iraq, Mexico, Northern Ireland, and the United Kingdom and more events are signing up daily as the movement continues to spread. Since the first event in 2000, St. Baldrick’s volunteers have raised over $50 million for life-saving research. Pretty badass.

Definitely doing this one next year.
_Rob

World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.

A strange man builds a world using holographic tools for the woman he loves.

This award winning short was created by filmmaker Bruce Branit, widely known as the co-creator of ’405′. World Builder was shot in a single day followed by about 2 years of post production. Branit is the owner of Branit VFX based in Kansas City.

Check out more world builder action on Facebook here.

_Rob

Alas, I will be on sandy beaches in Hawaii this week, but everyone else should check this out. Refresh Pittsburgh and On the Fridge, LLC. are putting on this nifty one day conference centered on web design. It will showcase some serious talent from the Pittsburgh area, as all the speakers are local to here. If you want to keep up on the web design scene here in the burgh, this is the place to go.

Info

webdesignday
Saturday April 4, 2009
8:30am – 5:00pm
Left Field Meeting Space
116 Federal St.
Pittsburgh, PA
$40 per person

Looks like they are limited to 85 registrations, so hit it up quick!

_Rob