If there is one central truth about my office its that this is cluttered and unruly, mostly with the enormous mass of cables which I have. Most people strive to control their space by only selecting those things which they need to do what they want. People at home have printers, keyboards and mice, scanners, cameras, external drives, PDAs, phones, iPods, thumb drives, and various other USB-based devices and peripherals in varying combinations. What, then, do you do when you also have a lappy or a family member has another PC?

Some people just move the cable to the printer from one machine to the other. Others delve into the periodically annoying and frusterating world of network-based device sharing. Others who care not to engage in such tomfoolery just duplicate some things. This is where the new Kensington ShareCentral line of device management products comes in. Kensington shipped me a ShareCentral 5 the other day, and I’ve been putting it throught the paces to see what its made of.

RIght off, I’d say its made of some pretty nifty technology. When I first received it I made the almost immediate discovery that what amounts to a 5-port USB hub is first and foremost an ingenious USB device aggregator. Here’s how it works. On the back, as you can see in the illustration, there are two USB Type-B sockets, one for each computer. There are then 5 USB ports and a power socket for the powersupply. Install tiny little drivers on the two Macintosh or Windows systems (or mix of the two) and plug them in.

My assumption would be that the driver sets up a number of virtual device ports on the host computer so that they can all talk at the same time. This is fantastic because then all you need to do is plug in a single USB cable to access all of your devices, something which could possibly allow for cleaner cable management. Of course, its a little too expensive to just use as a device aggregator, but as a device sharing tool, it strikes a fair bargain.

To test the ShareCentral 5, I set it up on my desk where I have an HP 7800 Small Form Factor PC running Windows XP SP3 and an older PowerPC-based Mac Mini running Leopard. I removed the keyboard and mouse from the Mac and installed the drivers for both Mac OS X and Windows. I was a little disappointed at the poor quality of the CD-ROM supplied. It seemed rather poorly created, but it worked well. I would have preferred a dual format CD for users who may not be as well equipped to work with technical issues as I am.

I then plugged in each of the supplied USB to Computer cables (one is shorter than the other for what I would assume to be an effort to reduce entanglement) into each of the machines and connected the wireless dongle for the Logitech LX710 keyboard and mouse combo. It popped up in Windows first. I then clicked the button with the keyboard and mouse icon on it, it flashed a few times, and jumped to the other side. Now the Mac was using it. It was seamless, though it took a few seconds.

I tested a printer and a USB hard drive formatted in FAT32 and each worked flawlessly. I even tested switching with a hard drive from the Mac to Windows without first ejecting the drive and it apparently doesn’t complain, which means that the driver must add that functionality. I can’t confirm that just yet because I haven’t tested it to my satisfaction, though, so don’t take my word for it. Otherwise, everything works as advertised.

The box comes with everything you’ll need inside, including a little rubber gromet thing which can attach to either side and act as a cable guide in case you want to plug in a laptop in front of the device. Another nice touch are the four buttons which are magnetic. If you mount the device on a wall, you can rotate the images. If you want to put on custom buttons, it comes with three numbered blanks. Very well thought out, aside from the CD, of course.

Its solid, well built, and very functional. I appreciate the Mac OS X support, as well as the seamless operation between systems. It would be nice if Kensington got really platform happy and developed a set of Linux drivers, but we can’t get everything we wish for, do we. It is now available for US$79.99 direct from Kensington and, I would presume, from their retail partners.

written by Tyler Regas