Whenever I have something going on with my computer, I always think about how our computers are sooooo fancy that IT could just access it remotely, play around and fix whatever needs to be fixed. Sharing screens is a super cool tool that can come in handy in many situations, and one that turns out, isn’t just for IT experts.
If you are running Mountain Lion on your Mac and have Messages you can share screens with your other pals and play the tech expert to help troubleshoot issues or just to simply have some fun. Wanna learn how to use this nifty tool?
To get started with screen sharing, each person must be using the same type of account: AIM, Bonjour, Google Talk or Jabber. Unfortunately, screen sharing is unavailable through iMessages (two iCloud accounts). To start sharing the screen, simply click on the user’s name in your Buddies list and from the menu, choose Ask to Share [_____]‘s screen.
Or, you can select your buddy’s name and click the screen sharing icon (it looks like two overlapping rectangles) on the bottom right of the Buddies window. Whoever you invited will then receive an invitation via a dialog box. When this happens, they can either accept or send you a text reply with something like, “I’m busy; can’t share screens right this second.” To end the screen share, simply look for the flashing orange screen-sharing icon and then choose End Screen Sharing.
However, the possibilities of Messages do not end here. You can also do things like share slideshows and presentations. This could be a huge tool for businesses. Read more about Slideshows and Presentations via Messages in Mike Burl’s, How To Give A Remote Presentation With Messages article.
If you’d like to keep a copy of your conversations in Messages, simply hop into the preferences and choose the Messages tab and enable “Save History When Conversations Are Closed.” If you’d like to locate the archived messages, open up Finder, hold down the Option key and select Go > Library. When that opens, click on the Messages folder and then the Archive folder. There should be a series of folders labeled with various dates. These are your chats!
Here at Small Dog, we use Messages all day, every day, to “chat” with one another. If you’ve never used Messages and have it on your computer, open ‘er up and play around. It could be a handy app for you. Cheers!