14 DAY TRIAL // Working on multiple assignments on more than one computer at the same time will certainly increase your productivity level, especially if you need to perform tasks that require less user involvement and more resources. Make things even better by employing Teleport to switch the keyboard and mouse control between your workstations through a simple mouse swipe.
There are several applications out there that try to make using the same peripheral devices for more than one computer as straightforward as possible and provide roughly the same features. Like most of them, Teleport has its pros and cons, depending on your needs.
Teleport will definitely not be your choice if you are working on different operating systems because it can only run on Macs (ShareMouse is able to run on Windows computers, however). On the other hand, if you need an app that works both on Mavericks and on older Mac OS X versions, such as Snow Leopard, Teleport will rise up to the task nicely.
The application is designed to integrate into your system as a System Preferences pane, so it will stay out of your way most of the time. Depending on the operating system, you must either check the “Enable access for assistive devices” in the Universal Access Panel (on Snow Leopard) or add it to the Accessibility list in the Security & Privacy area (on Mavericks).
To start using Teleport, you must make sure that your computers see each other on Bonjour. During our tests, we noticed that two computers that had not detected each other previously were able to establish a connection after enabling the Teleport “Share this Mac” function on both.
If you do not notice that right away, things can get quite frustrating: you can activate the pasteboard synchronization and the file transfer via drag and drop actions only through that particular Options panel.
At the same time, you can adjust the way in which you switch from a computer to the other. Since Teleport creates “portals” at the edge of your screen that allow you to “switch” with a simple mouse swipe to the desktop margins, using a mouse / key combination or at least a certain delay is essential if you do not want to jump to another screen by mistake.
Customizing all other required settings is fairly easy: you can decide which device is the controlling station and which is the controlled station by checking the respective boxes, and you can arrange your Macs via drag and drop actions in the Layout panel.
Of course, this is also useful if there are other users on the network who work with Teleport and you do not want to accidentally grant them access to your Mac.
For your convenience, Teleport places a status bar menu that allows you to deactivate certain features or to stop sharing your Mac altogether. This is useful because, in certain situations, Teleport might stop performing properly and an app relaunch is necessary to bring things back to normal.
The bad news is that you can close the app through the status bar menu, but you need to go through the System Preferences to launch it again.
The Good
The app uses very few resources (around 10 MB RAM, no CPU power while in standby and no more than 10% CPU while switching), and has the potential of staying out of your way at all times (if you hide the status bar menu and add it to the Login Items list you won’t even know it’s there).
The Bad
At the same time, the Options panel is hard to find if you do not know what you are looking for and might lead both experienced and inexperienced users to a lot of wasted time.
Teleport also stops working at times or simply freezes, but everything gets back to normal if you simply close and launch it again.
