Sticky notes are cool.  I love taking a quick, digital note with the assurance that it will both be saved and save the environment; albeit one leaf at a time.  No need to litter the cubicle with 3×3 pieces of paper, right?

So Microsoft lifted a decent idea from MAC with the sticky notes as a widget in Windows Vista.  It’s even better in Windows 7. BUT!…There’s always a big “BUT”.  Let’s talk about Windows 7’s big “BUT”.

You know that little “x” at the top right of all of your windows applications since, oh I don’t know, Windows 3.1?  Closes the application, right?  WRONG!  Apparently, Microsoft decided to make it DELETE YOUR NOTE in Windows 7.  If I was a swearing man, now would be the time.

In Microsoft’s defense, you’ll be warned with a dialog like so:

If you’re like me, you checked the checkbox long ago and forgot all about it.  If you want to bring the warning back, you can do so by modifying your registry.  Set the \HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Applets\StickyNotes\PROMPT_ON_DELETE DWORD to “1″.

Microsoft trained me for years to press Ctrl+S to save and then click the “x” to close the application.  My sticky note was a victim of Pavlov’s theory.

Synergy rocks. In their own words:

Synergy lets you easily share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, without special hardware. It’s intended for users with multiple computers on their desk since each system uses its own monitor(s).  Redirecting the mouse and keyboard is as simple as moving the mouse off the edge of your screen. Synergy also merges the clipboards of all the systems into one, allowing cut-and-paste between systems. Furthermore, it synchronizes screen savers so they all start and stop together and, if screen locking is enabled, only one screen requires a password to unlock them all. Learn more about how it works.

Synergy has been around for awhile.  I don’t pretend to be revealing a hidden gem.  So why do I share?  Because I’ve got an interesting setup that I hope someone else may find useful!  Also, my mother told me to share.

The majority of my time at work is spent in .NET development.  I have a MacBook Pro configured to dual boot to Windows 7 (Boot Camp) and it runs like a champ.  My company’s VPN is such that it disables connections to the general internet.  When I connect to my VPN, I lose my internet connection.  Nooo, it doesn’t support split tunneling or allow me to clear the “Use gateway on remote network” checkbox.  So if I want to work from home AND have an internet connection….enter Synergy! Synergy allows me to control my Windows 7 laptop AND my iMac with a single keyboard and mouse. Also, Synergy connected systems share clipboard settings.  Awww yeeaaah!

I setup my windows laptop as the Synergy server like so:

Next, I created a couple basic AppleScript scripts to connect to and disconnect from the server. The startup script assumes that you have the synergy client in a folder called “synergy” in the root directory.

Client Connect (technically, you can do this without “tell application”, but I like the visual):

tell application "Terminal"
 activate
 do script "/synergy/synergyc -f <ServerHostNameOrIpAddress>"
end tell

Client Disconnect:

set synergyName to "synergy"

set synergyPid to (do shell script "ps ax | grep " &
  (quoted form of synergyName) & " | grep -v grep | awk '{print $1}'")

if synergyPid is not "" then do shell script ("kill -9 " & synergyPid)

Download Synergy
Download Synergy Client Launch AppleScript
Download Synergy Client Kill AppleScript

A month or so ago, I blogged about multiple remote sessions on Windows Vista SP2.  Since then, I’ve started playing with Windows 7 from my company’s MSDN subscription.  Very cool.  I’ll save some of my favorite features  for another post.

@Choreboy responded to my blog post and mentioned a universal solution that he found here.  I downloaded, scanned with Avast (no viruses), installed & rescanned (still clean).  It worked great!  It claims to work on Vista & XP as well, but I haven’t tested it.

Download Universal Patch here

Run program & you’re done.  Happy RDP-ing.