Today’s online life is very complex.

I have seen pictures of work space of many computer geeks; full of mess, wires, gadgets criss-crossing one another and fighting for that crucial space. Many of them are so occupied that they have to use more than one computer simltaneouly. For them, it becomes a pain to switch the keyboard because these are the primary control device, and are required to be placed at most comfortable location.

After coming across one such picture of Al Gore in his office recently [Pic courtesy labnol.org], see yourself, I was wondering how exactly it is done. At that time I was not aware of the process behind it.

The search brought out not one, but three utilities, which can help you to control more than one desktop screens, with one set of keyboard and mouse. Really useful for tech-geeks.

MaxiVista: It used to sell for a steep $50, but the latest version runs just $20.96. You can download the trial version for free. It not only allows you to control second screen with the same keyboard and mouse, but you can also drag and drop items from one screen to the other.

Synergy: Synergy is open source and is released under the GNU Public License (GPL). However it is differnt from MaxiVista in the sense that it allows you to only control the other screen. You cannot drag and drop items from one screen to the other. Being Open Source, it is free. However, one drawback, which I noticed is that it is not being upgraded for quite some time, may be more than a year.

And the third one is…

Win2VNC: It works fine with Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP.

…program will open a small (one pixel wide) window on the edge of your screen. Moving the pointer into this window will trigger the program to take over your mouse and send mouse movements and keystrokes though the RFB protocol to a VNC server running on another machine. When the pointer is moved back towards the opposite edge on the other screen, the mouse is returned to your primary display.

The best part is that it is FREE, like all good things in life.

I am sure there will be more also. Wouldn’t you like to share them ?