21 Dec 2009
Often I need to share an idea or coding technique with my colleagues in our programming studio. In the past, this would mean everyone getting out of their seats and gathering around one machine. These days we’ve found a far more effective way of sharing ideas. Using the built-in Mac screen sharing tool, we all log in to one machine and run the tutorial/discussion from there.
You can watch your colleague's screen using Mac OSX's built-in screen sharing tool. No additional applications required.
If you have a Mac, this is how you do it:
Pros:
- You don’t have to leave your computer to look at someone else’s screen
- Any person can take over control of the mouse/keyboard at any time. Often I get stuck on my own tutorial (“Where is it on the menu again?”) and it’s great that another member of our team can weigh in at any time without stretching over to grab a mouse.
Cons:
- Everyone has to be in the same room, otherwise you need to use other tools that have audio streaming. This technique works best when everyone is in the same room and can hear each others’ voices.
How to use Mac’s built in screen-sharing (for OSX Leopard and upwards):
Set up your machine
- Go to System Preferences -> Sharing
- Ensure that the Screen Sharing checkbox is checked.
- When you click on Screen Sharing, you will see options on the right-hand side:
- Note your VNC address (it is the same as your computer’s network IP address)
- Click on Computer Settings and choose “Anyone may request permission to control screen”.
View your desktop from another machine
- Using another Mac, ensure you are in Finder and click Go->Connect to Server (Apple-K)
- Type in your VNC address. It would look something like this: vnc://10.0.0.99
- A permission request will be sent to your Mac. Get back onto your Mac and accept the request. (You can also set up a password so that users don’t have to ask you for your permission.)
- Now your desktop is viewable and controllable by another user.
Further reading
Use the in-depth guides below to get the most out of Mac’s built in screen-sharing capabilities:
- Leopard Makes It Easy to Share Your Mac’s Screen Locally and Over the Internet
- Turn Leopard’s Screen Sharing into a better “Apple Remote Desktop lite”