I discovered this program yesterday from the Mac OS X Downloads page. It’s a pretty cool, immensely useful, and relatively inexpensive program that allows you to use your 12-inch (or any mac for that matter) to remotely serve as the keyboard and mouse for multiple other computers (PC or Mac) that are running KMremoteControl, as well. It works great for my work scenario, where I have a desktop G4 that is basically acting as a file-server and Airport base-station to my 12-inch alongside a Windows 2000 Print Server. Now, I can control both computers with ease from my 12-inch, all for under $30. Not too shabby at all.
Having Romeo installed on my 12-inch and Veta Universal installed on my 3650, the next logical decision was to try using VU’s remote control of the mouse functions on my 12-inch through the 3650 to actually control one of the other machines through KMremoteControl. Surprisingly, it works . . . sort of: for some reason it controls the mouse simultaneously on both the 12-inch and the remotely controlled computer, and as a result clicking outside of KMremoteControl on the 12-inch makes the click register on the 12-inch, rather than on the intended icon on the remote system. 🙁
Also, I cannot get CTRL+ALT+DELETE to work on the Windows 2000 machine when controlling it with the 12-inch. I also cannot get that right-mouse click effect by CTRL-clicking. So the functionality there is a little hampered, but for the most part, it is a great program that enables me to use my favorite keyboard ever, the tactile aluminum-looking one on the 12-inch, to control all my computers.
Now if I could just figure out how to get the Internet sharing over Airport to startup automatically with my G4 Tower, I could unplug that keyboard for good…
UPDATE: I emailed the makers about my desire for CTRL+ALT+DELETE functionality and received an informative email from Bryan Derman in reply:
The bad news is that the current version (1.10) does not have a solution
for the Ctrl-Alt-Delete when using a PowerBook/reduced keyboard (at least
none that we know of). The same is true of the right-mouse issue when
you’re using a single-button mouse [wish Apple would wake up and start
shipping at least a 2-button mouse … personally, I’ve used a 3-button
mouse for years, with the middle button mapped to a
left-button-double-click].The good news is that the next release (1.20) will have a solution to
both these issues (and a little more). We’ll have that release out near
the end of September (perhaps even a week sooner than that). [I also
just realized that I forgot to put the right-mouse-to-PC issue on the web
site … I’ll fix that, today.]
Less than 3 hour response time. Not too shabby!
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