Multi-tasking is the norm today. For me, I can’t be without my multiple screen for maximum productivity. One screen just doesn’t cut it, the office will have 2 or more screen for all my work and communication apps with additional laptop or tablet for other tasks. That’s just how my style has evolved over the years and modern tech supports this greatly. Work and screen space is highly important and I have not looked back since. Now during the pandemic, many are working at home and perhaps rediscovering their own productivity issues. I wanted to talk about something that has bothered me for a while a number of solutions solve this with satisfying results.
My current office has two computers for different purposes. Sounds strange I know, but hear me out. Sometimes you need to split and segregate certain systems for various reasons. For me, it’s power and spread of applications. My cloud drives sync perfectly and going back and forth between these two work environments is now seamless, we almost. The glaring issue, no matter how many computers and screen I would use were input limitations and space. For a short while I found myself either hot swapping my mouse and keyboard between the two workstations. Other times I would have two sets on my desk. This was confusing, inefficient and just outright messy.
I am not a minimalist but I need some order and convenience when it comes to using multiple computers. Enter a USB switcher/KVM switch. A device that is able to easily switch between video and input streams. Controlling both systems with a single set of peripherals was an amazing solution. I’ve not been without one since, but there have been cases when working away from home that I found myself with any switch at all. What to do?
Well, a cheap (free) solution that I have tried in the past is Barrier KVM. Barrier is an open source project that is currently maintained under debauchee on github. This software bridges the gap between systems, emulating KVM function via software. It works extremely well and I benefited from its utility when I was in jam many times. If you need to use multiple systems using a single mouse and keyboard, take a look at Barrier.
https://github.com/debauchee/barrier
