In a post-PC world, people use smartphones or tablets as an addition to their already existing technology arsenal. They are no replacements for a standard laptop or desktop. There are a number of ways, in fact to combine the capabilities of your PC and mobile. Nowadays, computers have moved on to places where even keyboards and mouse are not always welcome, though.

Given the increasing omnipresence of smartphones, it’s both less intrusive and more accommodative to let people control these computers with something small that they’re guaranteed to have on their person anyway.

With the right chain of adapters, one could plausibly use things like the original Microsoft Mouse or the Apple Extended Keyboard with today’s systems.

Mobile Mouse requires a free piece of “server” software to be installed on any computer you want to control with it.

This application uses Bonjour to allow your phone and computer to find each other on a network and the Mobile Mouse Server will automatically install the Bonjour package on Windows computers during setup.

Providing a password for security and changing pointer settings are all done using the server software. Once the client is installed, the default settings will start it up when the computer starts and make it easy to find and connect when searching from the Mobile Mouse app

Turning your phone sideways converts the entire touchscreen into one big trackpad. Once the server software has been installed, client app can be downloaded to the phone and it should be started up.

Automatically it will discover all of the computers on the network that are running the software. The computer you want to connect to could be tapped on, and then type in the password if it has one and you can begin using the app.

The Mobile Mouse Pro app which is priced at $1.99 on iOS, and $2.99 on Android is what really makes it all the more interesting. It adds specialized controls for media players and Web browsing, a simple file browser, and even an application launcher. The Mobile Mouse app will find any computer on your network running the server software.