It's not often that software gets posted about without the poster having tried it ("how's never? is never good for you?") but I just came across a posting for a sweet-sounding Pref pane called teleport over on MacUpdate that sounds fantastic and is getting great reviews:
I've been wanting something like this for a long time and it seems like the sort of thing a lot of FA: OSX readers might find really handy; I think I'll fire up the old G3 and give this thing a spin....
If you try it, let us know what you think.
teleport is a simple prefpane utility to let you use one single mouse and keyboard to control several of your Macs. Simply reach the edge of your screen, and your mouse teleports to your other Mac! The pasteboard can even be synchronized between the computers.
I've been wanting something like this for a long time and it seems like the sort of thing a lot of FA: OSX readers might find really handy; I think I'll fire up the old G3 and give this thing a spin....
If you try it, let us know what you think.
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9 Comments:
Teleport would be awesome if it worked. It's buggy as hell, the author doesn't seem interested in fixing bugs or even giving me the source so I can fix it myself. I even offered to pay him for it.
By Bob Ippolito, at 10:16 PM
i use teleport for quite a while now. yes it's buggy but most of the time it works fine.
but it would be great if the developer would let interested people help him optimize this great tool!
By Andreas Jakopec, at 1:20 AM
Can you descibe the bugs? Show-stoppers, annoyances or cosmetic?
By Chris, at 6:07 AM
I like teleport, but it definitely has some issues.
1. It doesn't work without a user logged in. So you can't get rid of a mouse and keyboard on that machine.
2. Will just stop working randomly when switching from one machine to another.
3. Will get lagged down hard when either machine is downloading big files.
It's definitely usable, but not something I would rely on.
By Anonymous, at 10:24 AM
check out synergy. http://synergy2.sourceforge.net never tried it in os x, but it works great in linux and windows. and it works cross-platform...I control both my linux machine and my windoze machine with one keyboard and mouse. I'll have to give it a whirl with my ibook as a third machine. and best of all, synergy is GPL.
By Anonymous, at 9:34 PM
The author is now working for Apple and I wouldn't be surprised if his employment had something to do with lack of updates and lack of source code...
By Patrick, at 8:43 PM
I'm pretty sure I asked him for source before he worked at Apple.
By Bob Ippolito, at 2:30 PM
My use case:
My B&WG3 is running various apps all the time for me, but my primary Mac is an iBook. When I get home, I put the iBook on my desk shelf, next to my G3's monitor and plug in the power cord.
[Unfortunate part] I open up the teleport.plist file in BBEdit, delete the contents and save the file. I open up System Preferences, load up the teleport pane, and toggle the "Activate Teleport" checkbox twice: Once to off and then back to on. Now my iBook shows up in the screen setup area and I drag it into place and close System Preferences. [/Unfortunate Part]
I then have a full size (ADB Extended Keyboard II) and wireless mouse attached to my iBook without abusing my USB ports each night. It's almost like having BlueTooth keyboard/mouse pieces, except I can switch back and forth to my G3 so easily.
[Unfortunate Part]...As long as I remember to avoid the right-hand shift key which doesn't work, though the left shift works just fine.[/Unfortunate Part]
I would love to be able to skip the plist deletion/System Pref reset and the shift key issue, but I'll work with it because it makes my life that much easier.
By Anonymous, at 9:02 AM
I can't get this program to work at all. I don't even get any feedback -- drag the mouse where it's supposed to switch screens, and wait, and wait.... no way to "Edit trusted hosts" and nothing shows up there because I never get the other machine to even acknowledge the interaction. And I check and recheck "Activate teleport" and "share this mac" to no avail.
By Commodore, at 2:58 AM
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