How to share screens using Leopard

September 10, 2008 by Ross McKillop

I have to say the ability to easily share a screen in Leopard may be one of my favorite features. I use Remote desktop a lot, mainly because I’m lazy. If I can sit on the couch and quickly check my email on my main computer upstairs from my wife’s iBook then why should I have to get up? It’s all about working smart not hard!

What I like about Screen Sharing in Leopard the most is how well it actually works. To launch it from finder click on the Go menu and select Network from the list, navigate to the computer you want to control and select it. You will be given the option to Connect as or Share Screen - select Share Screen - that’s it. You can even re-size the shared computer screen to virtually any size you like, big or small.

Leopard Share Screen is also very snappy, the default setting automatically adjusts the quality to the speed of your network bandwidth, my network is Wireless-G and it was more than adequate to do the job. I was so impressed I went a step further to see if Leopard Screen Sharing was as good as I thought it was, I attempted a double Screen Share. What I mean is I shared my MacBook Pros screen using an iBook, but the kicker is the iBook was being Screen Shared from a MacBook. And what was really interesting is the MacBook Pro didn’t even have Leopard installed on it and all of this was still usable!

If you have more than one Mac at home and find yourself running back and forth to check or run stuff, it’s time you upgraded to Leopard.