Review: Teleport 1.0.2
Product: Teleport
Manufacturer: Abyssoft
Date Reviewed: 6-18-11
Version Reviewed: 1.0.2
Retail Price: donationware
Teleport is a PreferencePane that lets you control several Macs using a single keyboard and mouse. Simply move your mouse to the edge of your screen and your mouse cursor “teleports” to your nearby Mac. With Teleport you can synchronize your pasteboard to copy and paste easily between multiple Macs. You can even drag and drop files between Teleport configured Macs – with no need to mount volumes beforehand.
Sound too good to be true?
That’s what I thought, until I tried it for myself. In short, Teleport works as advertised. I’ve tested the program with Snow Leopard between my two Macs, one laptop and one desktop. Teleport works with Leopard, too. If you happen to rock a PowerPC Mac, you’re in luck – because Teleport also supports that configuration, albeit with a slightly older version (1.0.1).
Installation was drop-dead simple: Double-click the Teleport PreferencePane and the Teleport icon shows up in your System Preferences. Teleport also installs itself as a menu item, making access even more convenient. To make use of Teleport, you’ll have to install and activate it on every Mac screen you want to share.
The Teleport PrefPane includes three main areas: Layout, Security Settings, and Options.
In the Layout tab, you can activate (or deactivate) Teleport. To make use of Teleport, you will also need to click the “Share this Mac” button. In the Layout tab, you can arrange the shared Macs. I kept my Macbook Pro’s screen on the left and the Mac Pro’s screens on the right, to match the physical placement I have between both machines. Teleport supports dual display monitors.
The security settings allow for encrypted connections and you an also specify access via the Control requests radio buttons.
Within the Options tab, you can assign a keyboard shortcut to enable screen switching, customize the delay between switching screens andalso configure support for dragging and dropping files between Macs. You can also specify a rule to limit how large pasted files can be, if you plan to copy and paste between Macs.
Teleport works as advertised with my computing setup. I plan to test it on my G5 machine soon. It’s an incredibly useful tool if you manage two or more close proximity Macs. For optimum use, you want to make sure that you can physically see all the screens you plan to “teleport” between. If you have Macs in other rooms where you can’t see the screen directly, using Apple’s Screen Sharing app makes more sense.
If you haven’t already guessed, I really like Teleport. If all it did was let you share one keyboard and mouse between multiple Macs, it would still be a good program – but the addition of drag and drop file transfer between Macs and the inclusion of a synchronized pasteboard between multiple Macs makes Teleport a no-brainer to download. The only thing that would make Teleport even more awesome is if there was a method to share one keyboard between multiple platforms, like the open-source Synergy. In my experience, however, Teleport is much easier to install and configure compared to Synergy.
Update: Since this review was written, I’ve noticed a few times when the cursor does not return back to the main screen after “teleporting” to another. The only fix that I have been able to find is to go to the Teleport Menu on the controlled screen and deselect “Share this Mac”.
Teleport earns a solid 4.5 out of 5 stars. If you like the program, kick in a few bucks to the developer!
-Krishna
Tell me what you think!
No comments yet. Be the first!