MacOS X Gotchas

Couple things I noticed when using my Macs in general.
1. Pairing Apple remote requires you to log-in as administrator. Yeah, it sounds stupid. I was trying to pair my Apple remote with my iMac to no avail. After reading Apple's document closer, apparently you have to log-in as admin.

2. Screen sharing doesn't stream audio output to the connecting computer. This is a bummer. With Microsoft Remote Desktop, the sounds produced by the windows client is streamed to my connecting Mac. Sure there's a delay due to the network, but it is useful in certain situations. Not the case with screen sharing. Gosh, for once Microsoft did things better than Apple.

Screen Sharing

Amazed by Microsoft's Remote Desktop software that allows me to control my Windows PCs from my iMac, I'm thinking I bet Apple have this built-in in the OS. Yup, it's called Screen Sharing in Leopard. Apple made it even easier. All I need to do is to enable "Screen Sharing" on the target Mac (in my case my Macbook), allow access for specific user(s) (this is for security. I you don't do this, anybody with a VNC client on the network can access the Mac), and voila. I logged out from my Macbook, went to my iMac, opened up Finder, and my Macbook is listed on the Shared computer list. All I needed was to click "Share Screen," and a Screen Sharing app started, and I can log-in to my Macbook via my iMac.

Again, probably nothing new for some computer networking experts, but I still find these features to be awesome. Having multiple computers used to force me to go to different computers to control them. Even with a KVM switch, it's still a hassle. Now I can control everything from 1 computer. :)