If you’ve ever had a friend that is new to the Mac scene I’m sure you’ve played the the role of Tech Support. Lord knows, I have! Or maybe it’s your parents who finally decided to drop their PC and upgrade to a Mac due to your “minor” influences. Well, if you can relate to a scenario like this I’m sure you’ve found yourself on the phone trying to talk them through certain procedures like burning a CD or transferring photos or simply changing their desktop background. Doesn’t that get annoying? I don’t mean the act of helping others…I enjoy that. I mean not being able to see their screen when trying to help.

Well, nothing is worse than trying to explain something and give directions when you can’t see what the other person is clicking. Now there are tons of Remote Desktop applications out there and I’ve used a number of them like Apple Remote Desktop and Remote Desktop but I just never felt like I needed that sophisticated of an application that warranted me keeping them.

Now, I just use one of the new features in iChat which allows you to share screens with the user you’re chatting with. It’s actually extremely easy to use. While in a chat with a friend or family member click “buddies” from the menu bar:

Then click “Ask to share {users name} screen”. This will send an invite to the desired user. Upon completion you’re screen will minimize to a small box similar the way it does when you video chat. At this point you can control the other users screen.

For the sake of this post, I just connected to my laptop which was right next to my MacPro as seen below:

You can see how my MacPro is connecting to my laptop as the extra screen space went black to reflect the screen resolution of my laptop on the desk. It’s extremely efficient in showing both friends and family how to accomplish certain tasks without having to guess what they may be referring to. AND, if you’re not feeling like chatting on the phone while performing this you can start from a video chat then follow the steps above to ask for permission to share the screen. At that point you’ll be able to see their screen and be able to hear them via the video chat audio functionality.

Note: if you’re listening to music the music will go to pause during screen share session.

Well, you know what you have to do. Convert more PC users and show them the ropes with iChat!

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 3rd, 2008 at 7:57 pm and is filed under Apple, How-To, Technology, Workflow. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.