Subaru Enthusiasts Car Club of the Sierras - View Single Post - Cool Apps For PCs, Macs, Phones, whatever, not Games.

Dean · 2010-04-29, 02:28 PM

Yesterday's find was Input Director, kind of a cross between a virtual KVM switch without the V and VNC.

My 10 year old IR wireless Keytronic keyboard with touchpad I have been using for my HTPC died and I did not want to pay $40 for a new one and needed something now. The old 15' USB extension and such was not going to cut it for long.

I also have a computer with a 17" LCD next to my couch and a wired 3/4 keyboard with touchpad.

I did not want to run full blown VNC as I did not want the CPU impact on the HTPC and did not need to see the video anyway, it is 50" across right in front of me, so I went searching for something to send Keyboard and Mouse input from one PC to another.

At first I found Synergy, which is a great multi-OS option, but does not work well on Vista or Windows 7's new security model and interacting with the pre-desktop environment. But one thread discussing how to sort of work around that led me to ID!

After installing the service on each machine, you set one as master and as many slaves as you want and then layout the displays like you would a single PC with multiple monitors.

When my mouse pointer hits the right edge of my couch computer's LCD, it jumps seamlessly to the left side of my HDTV! You could just as easily do this with a laptop, or if you have more than one computer and display in place of a KVM!

It also supports clipboard and file transfers. cut and paste text, files, whatever from one PC to another as if they were on one...

You can also set it up with hot keys to change screens if you don't like the mouse jumping displays.

Very cool, and did I mention FREE!!! Enjoy.

2010-04-29, 02:28 PM	#3
Dean Señor Cheap Bastarde Real Name: Dean Join Date: May 2003 Location: $99 Tire Store Posts: 9,294 Car: $.04 STI Class: Fast,Cheap & Reliable=STI Deal, did somebody say Deal? Oh, Dean, yeah that's me.	Input Director Yesterday's find was Input Director, kind of a cross between a virtual KVM switch without the V and VNC. My 10 year old IR wireless Keytronic keyboard with touchpad I have been using for my HTPC died and I did not want to pay $40 for a new one and needed something now. The old 15' USB extension and such was not going to cut it for long. I also have a computer with a 17" LCD next to my couch and a wired 3/4 keyboard with touchpad. I did not want to run full blown VNC as I did not want the CPU impact on the HTPC and did not need to see the video anyway, it is 50" across right in front of me, so I went searching for something to send Keyboard and Mouse input from one PC to another. At first I found Synergy, which is a great multi-OS option, but does not work well on Vista or Windows 7's new security model and interacting with the pre-desktop environment. But one thread discussing how to sort of work around that led me to ID! After installing the service on each machine, you set one as master and as many slaves as you want and then layout the displays like you would a single PC with multiple monitors. When my mouse pointer hits the right edge of my couch computer's LCD, it jumps seamlessly to the left side of my HDTV! You could just as easily do this with a laptop, or if you have more than one computer and display in place of a KVM! It also supports clipboard and file transfers. cut and paste text, files, whatever from one PC to another as if they were on one... You can also set it up with hot keys to change screens if you don't like the mouse jumping displays. Very cool, and did I mention FREE!!! Enjoy. __________________ I am a Commodore PET --- Now get off my lawn you kids... Last edited by Dean; 2010-04-29 at 02:37 PM.