Aloha Cocoa

I am one of those people that tote around a 17” MacBook Pro and love it.  The MBP has been my primary development machine for going on four years now and I continue to think it is the best setup for the average nomadic Mac developer.  Even with the 17” MBP though, extra screen real estate is always nice to have, and historically I have used an external secondary monitor via the DVI out of the MBP.  This is a great setup that mainly developers end up using. Recently though, I have taken it one step further and I must say, I am totally loving the new setup.

I purchased a 27” iMac about 6 weeks to use as a photo and video hub, photoshop box, and external monitor for my MBP.  The 27” iMac is capable of being used as an external monitor via its Target Display Mode.  The great thing about the setup, is the iMac continues to run and function even when in Target Display Mode.  This allows you to use it essentially as the server hub of your home network, even while using it as an external display.  Right off the bat, I loved the new iMac and it’s beautiful display, not to mention it’s zippy Core i7.  I did however have some minor annoyances related to keyboard/mouse switching and synching data between my MBP and the iMac.

Up until recently, I had two pairs of keyboards/mice, one for the MBP and one for the iMac.  This made it pretty cumbersome to switch between the two machines.  That was until I discovered teleport.  This little preference pane is a god send for multiple machine setups.  I installed it on both machines and set the iMac to “Share this Mac”.  I can now seamlessly move between the machines with the same keyboard/mouse combo.  This allows me to work in one of two modes.  With both machines at the same time or with just the MBP, using the iMac as an external monitor.  All that is required to switch modes is a quick <CMD + F2> while the mouse is active on the iMac.  Teleport also provides a nice little feature to only transition to the other computer when a control key is pressed, <Option/Alt> in my case.

The last piece of the puzzle was a robust synching solution, so that both machines are always up to date.  After some research, I choose to go with the exceptional app ChronoSync 4 (What a beautiful app icon).  I moved all my development and design files under a single root folder (not necessary but it keeps it simple) and setup a rule to have the ChronoSync Agent automatically keep them in sync.   The iMac also is connected to a Time Machine Capsule, so all the data is backed up and protected.

The new setup has allowed me to use the iMac as I had envisioned when I bought it.  I can quickly switch to it for CPU/GPU intensive design work or to view/edit family photos and videos.  Also, running Xcode on a 27” monitor and having the 17” MBP for logging, debugging, and the simulator windows is amazing. 

- Chad

Notes:
- I explored using synergy-plus first but found that teleport provided a way more robust and elegant solution 
- When I am away from the house with my MBP, the iMac would be without a keyboard/mouse combo assuming I had just the keyboard/mouse that is paired with the MBP.  For this reason, I do keep the keyboard/mouse combo that is paired with the iMac around just in case.