A network clipboard allows you to share the same clipboard between two computers connected via a network. You are able to copy text on one computer, and then paste it on the other.

Last week I posted an article about a handful of network clipboards that are available for free on Windows PCs. I was not able to get any of them to communicate to each other between Windows XP and Vista.

Over the week, I came across the open-source utility BeyondCopy 1.24, which is yet another network clipboard. I expected the same sort of luck as I had with the other programs I had tested, but I was pleasantly surprised when BeyondCopy worked for me first time without any fuss.

I installed the utility on each computer and added the other computers hostname to the list of acceptable computers. I opened up Notepad and typed in some text and copied it to the clipboard. I switched to the other computer and pressed paste, and clipboard followed me.

BeyondCopy runs in the task tray on both computers and can be started up with Windows. You are able to have more than two computers sharing the same clipboard. It is fairly secure as you have to put in the computer hostnames of all the computers you want to share the clipboard of, into the client on each computer. If you only do it on one, BeyondCopy will not connect. You are even able to change which port BeyondCopy uses for added security.

The documentation claims that the software will copy files but I had no luck with this. The help documentation isn’t too clear for this. I was able to copy text flawlessly, which is what I initially set out to do.

Now I have to get used to this new feature on my network. The impossible has become possible. I am already reaping the benefits as I have used it in writing this article. This one is a keeper!

BeyondCopy is free and available from their Website.

The latest Remote Desktop client which comes with Windows Vista only allows you to open up one remote desktop at a time. You are able to run multiple instances of it to open other desktops but this will clog up your taskbar quickly. Imagine having multiple clients to connect to other types of servers such as telnet and ssh2.

mRemote will let you store all your remote connections information in one place so that they can easily be recalled and accessed at the same time.

Their website explains it best

“mRemote allows you to manage all your remote connections in a single place. Currently it supports the RDP, VNC, SSH2 and Telnet protocols. The main intention is to have a central place to store all your connections and access them in the same window.”

I liked that the program was highly configurable for each server I connected to. I had the same control with remote desktops as I have with the latest Microsoft release of the Remote Desktop Client. Each new server connection loaded up in a new tab, making the switching between remote servers instant.

mRemote is still in Beta so take a bit of caution using it. There were a few tick box and layout problems which I came across but all in all, mRemote worked just as I hoped it would. I was able to connect to two computers via remote desktop, and another with telnet.

The install is a single file download and there is an uninstaller included. The latest version 0.0.7.0 was released 10/10/07. If you are using XP, ensure you have updated to the latest Remote Desktop Client from Microsoft before trying to use mRemote. You can download it here. This is not necessary if you are using Vista.

There are Remote Desktop Clients that will let you connect to multiple desktops from the same window. The programs I have seen are commercial releases, or they come with Windows Server. mRemote is the only client I have seen that will let you log on to multiple types of servers at the same time.

Download it for free from SourceForge.

We have already covered How-to tidy up your start menu in Vista at Inspect My Gadget. In the above article, we showed you how it can be done manually, but it is a little fiddly as your shortcuts which make up the Start Menu are not all stored in the one place.

Tidying up your Start Menu is a very worthwhile exercise as your list of installed programs will get very long over time, making it just about impossible to find what you are looking for.

SMOz is a tool to simplify the process of tidying up your Start Menu. There are some predefined categories which can be used as a good guide. You can use, delete or make your own categories. With simple drag and drop functionality, you can sort your start menu programs into a nicely categorised list, without any of the unnecessary un-installers or read-me files.

Tidying up your Start Menu makes programs quicker and easier to get to, making your time in front of the computer more productive.

SMOz is still a little premature, but using it in parallel with a bit of manual tweaking can give you great results. It all depends how particular you are.

SMOz works on both XP and Vista, and is available for free from SourceForge.

You may have noticed that with all the screen resolution changing software over the last few days, that your wallpaper does not want to play the game. If you change your resolution with a dual monitor setup, the wallpaper of your secondary monitor will change to the size of your main monitor. This is a little ugly and I can understand that in some scenarios, you may want a solution to make this much prettier.

Along comes DisplayFusion which will solve this problem for you, as it has done for me. DisplayFusion is a great utility to look after the wallpaper of your dual monitor setup.

You are able to stretch your wallpaper across multiple monitors, select a different wallpaper for each desktop as well as the ability to use images from flickr as your wallpaper.

If you change your resolution, DisplayFusion will recognise this and give you a balloon popup to adjust your wallpaper to suit. With 2 clicks, you can be back in action. Look out for future versions as this hopefully will become an automatic feature. Worth noting is that your Windows wallpapers are normally stored in your “C:\Windows\Web” folder

While this application won’t be suitable for all scenarios, it is great for anyone wanting more control over their dual monitor configuration. I thank the How-to Geek for letting me know of this.

Available from Binary Fortress. That’s enough screen resolution stuff from IMG for a while.

Last week I showed you Reschange 3.11 which is a command line utility to change your screen resolution. Since then, Cybernetnews has reported on a tiny utility called JRes, otherwise known as JustinRes. I didn’t know of this utility previously and it is worth comparing the two as they both have their own advantages and disadvantages.

This utility clocks in at a tiny 5kb and runs in your tasktray. Once you click on it, you get to switch between a whole range of resolutions, refresh rates as well as bit depth, covering just about any resolution you might want.

This is great for quick resolution changes and it works well. To make it run at startup, place the executable in your Start Menus –> Startup folder. This will do the job for me changing resolutions. The only drawback I found with JRes is that it lacks dual monitor support.

As with ResChange, there is no 15 second revert if you enter into a resolution your monitor or card does not support. Worth keeping in mind is Windows Safe Mode which will get you out of this dilemma. Press F8 just before Windows starts up and then you can enter safe mode to set the resolution back to whatever you would like.

So take your pick, JRes for speed, and Reschange for more configuration control. It all depends on how often you want to change your resolution and for whatever reason.

Available from Nullsoft.