Posted by Francis Avila on May 28, 2008
I have an Intel iMac (the white kind). It’s my personal machine. I like it. It’s nice. What I especially like about it is that it has a big screen (1680×1050).
I also have an Intel MacBook. It’s my work machine. I like it. It’s nice. But what I don’t like about it is that the screen is a bit smaller than my iMac (1200×800). Using the smaller keyboard and mouse isn’t so nice either.
What to do?
Well, there’s VNC. OS X even has a VNC server built in. So I could turn that on and then use a VNC client on my iMac. But that only gives me the keyboard and mouse and a 1280×800 window mirroring the MacBook screen. Not cool.
The same guy who makes this excellent VNC client also makes ScreenRecycler. ScreenRecycler turns your VNC client into an attached display. The monitor of the computer your VNC client runs on looks to OS X like just another monitor, plugged in through the mini-DVI port. So now I can work on my MacBook and have a 1680×1050 screen in addition. Joy!
But ScreenRecycler ignores input from the VNC client, so I can’t use my iMac’s keyboard and mouse to control my MacBook. No joy.
But some other guy on the internet makes Transport. Transport lets you control other Macs using your keyboard and mouse. Joy has returned!
So, the plan:
- Install and run ScreenRecycler and Transport on the MacBook.
- Install and run JollysFastVNC and Transport on the iMac.
- The VNC client finds ScreenRecycler via Bonjour. No sweat.
- On the MacBook, tell Teleport to “Share this Mac.”
All done! Now I can use my iMac as a second display to my MacBook and control my MacBook with my iMac. (I can even make the iMac the MacBook’s main display!) Using the power of Spaces, I can even have multiple workspaces, and keep (for example) Mail and iChat permanently displayed in the MacBook screen, no matter what workspace I’m in.
A caveat: Transport doesn’t seem to recognize the ScreenRecycler display, at least when one machine is Panther (iMac) and the other Leopard (MacBook). You have to arrange your virtual screens in Transport in such a way that they don’t share the same borders. Otherwise your pointer will get stuck on the MacBook.
Posted by Erin Doland on May 28, 2008
Unclutterer.com, a website providing daily tips on how to organize your home and office, is a Dancing Mammoth publication. Erin Rooney Doland is the site’s Editor-in-Chief and manages the internal project.
Started in early 2007, the site promotes the idea of “a place for everything, and everything in its place.” Unclutterer is not just for the helplessly disorganized who would lose their heads if they weren’t attached, and pack rats looking to put their stashes on a diet, but also for obsessive compulsive neat freaks looking to squeeze even more order into their lives. We hope we can make getting and staying organized fun and informative.
Chances are you don’t have as much space as you’d like, so you need to make the most of the space you do have. This doesn’t just mean finding a new nook in which to cram more clutter, or devising a clever way to stack piles of papers. Instead, it’s about streamlining your space and your possessions so that you can be more efficient at work and enjoy a more relaxing and serene environment at home.
Unclutterer features tips, organization strategies, product reviews, reader questions and more. We’re not a personal productivity blog or a site about interior design, but we still hope we can help you in those areas. Getting uncluttered and organized can be the first step to more efficiently tackling your projects and realizing a better-looking space.
Posted by PJ Doland on March 5, 2008
I’m in the process of upgrading my first-generation Core Duo Macbook, which is getting a little long-in-the-tooth. So this afternoon I visited Apple.com and I took a little time to review the specs of the newly released models.
I eventually came across the following bar chart, which is accessible as a pop-up from this page. It compares my current notebook (coincidentally) with the one I intend to purchase.
At first glance, it was obvious that something wasn’t quite right. The percentages listed inside the blue bars don’t even remotely correspond to the visual length of those bars relative to the baseline bar at the bottom. It isn’t even close.
I took a screenshot and did some measuring in Photoshop with the ruler tool. The baseline bar is 216 pixels wide. The bars above it are 357, 362, 382, and 417 pixels wide, respectively. That would yield rounded percentages of 65%, 68%, 77%, and 93%.
I assume the numbers are correct and Apple is just being deceptive to make the performance gains look more impressive. In any case, it’s definitely not cool.
