If you have a ‘headless’ (one without a screen) Mac somewhere and another Mac with a screen, linked through a network, ScreenRecycler from Jinx might be just the bet for you!
Most headless Macs are usually accessed and controlled using a VNC application of some sort but sometimes, its simpler if you could just interface with the headless Mac directly and be able to see what you’re doing.
ScreenRecycler installs in a flash. Simply download the package from Jinx and install the necessary driver and application on Client and Server machine and you’re on your way. About the most troublesome issue that you may encounter, is a likely conflicting access port used by ScreenRecycler. By default, ScreenRecycler uses port 5900 which is also used by Apple Remote Desktop (ARD), which requires some tweaking of ScreenRecycler’s access port and also the Firewall on both Client and Server machines.
To avoid conflict, we set our ScreenRecycler to utilise port 6900 using the ScreenRecycler Preferences options. Then we opened port 6900, of the Firewalls, on both Client and Server machines.
Unlike Abyssoft’sTeleport which we reviewed some time back, ScreenRecycler doesn’t just extend your Desktop but facilitates the abiilty to display your Desktop on the screen of another networked Mac. Something that Teleport doesn’t support and is great for headless Macs! In contrast, Teleport’s main function is to allow a user to control 2 or more Macs from a single networked Mac terminal.
ScreenRecycler is currently a time limited, free prelease version and we cannot wait for the full release which will hopefully sport more features.