MacBook number 3

MacBook number 3 arrived this morning.

This time, it has no obvious flaws, unlike numbers one and two (although these puppies do run really hot, especially during a heat wave.)

So for the thrid time in as many weeks, I installed Parallels Workstation, Windows XP, Office XP and Trados, and various other essential Mac programs (BBEdit, VLC Client, Transmit, etc.)

I have 14 days to return this one, but this time at least, I didn’t call Apple on the day I received it.

I’m sure I’ll have more to say on this machine as time goes by, but for the time being, I’d just like to mention a crazy little utility that I installed called Teleport. It basically allows you to remote-control one Mac from another Mac over your network (in my case, via Wi-Fi).

The great thing about this utility is the way it works: I set up the MacBook as the « master » and the iMac as the « slave, » and I virtually positioned both screens in relation to each other in the preferences. I then simply move the cursor to the right edge of the MacBook, and the cursor appears on the left side of the screen of the iMac. The MacBook’s keyboard and trackpad are now in control of the iMac. There’s a little demo movie on the Teleport site that shows it in action.

Really cool and practical. It means I can run iTunes or VLC or answer emails on the iMac without moving my hands off the MacBook (which will be a big plus during the cold winter months in Paris).