25 Apr, 2007
Synergy - Increase your Productivity on the Computer
Posted by: Jeff VanDrimmelen In: Student Tools| Teacher Tools| Tech Stuff
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Just a forewarning… this is a techie post, but a techie post that I think some educators will find useful.
So I have a three computers that I use regularly. I have a dual-monitor Desktop ThinkCentre, a MAC Mini and a Laptop. You can see them all here together.
Well, as you can imagine syncing information on all these computers is difficult (that is a whole post in itself) but using all of these computers at once has always been hard. Sometimes there is a program I need on my MAC, sometimes I need to do something on my laptop. It has always been so hard and involved going from one to another.Enter Synergy… (via Lifehacker).
I’ll leave the details to Lifehacker. The installation isn’t too hard, but it isn’t exactly totally easy either. After you get it done, YOU CAN USE ONE KEYBOARD AND MOUSE TO CONTROL ALL THE COMPUTERS AT ONCE!!
Wow! Let me tell you… my life is changed. Basically I have one huge 4 screen computer using 3 processors and 3 different computers to do my work. I can do more things at once. Have more programs open and get to more information. An added monitor could increase your productivity by up to 30% depending on how you decide to use that second screen. You can’t drag you applications across the screens, but you can do work
on all of them and you can copy and paste from one to another.
Now I realize that a lot of people don’t have three computers they work with on a regular basis, but many of you have laptops and desktops and try to use them both while at work. If this is you… you deserve taking the 1/2 hour you need to set this up!
Possible Educational Uses:
- I think the biggest possibility would be for teacher’s that are already using two computers (like a laptop and a desktop at work). You could use this to use both computers at once. Leave open your laptop and put important reference information on it, or e-mail, or video, anything. Then do your work on the main computer.
- Another possibility would be for teachers who don’t have a dual monitor set-up, but would like one. There are increasingly more spare computers lying around unused. Put two of those together and presto! You have a dual monitor computer, but with double the processing power.
What do you think? Anyone else out there using this? How would having an additional screen/computer increase your productivity?
