The best way to mirror an iPad screen to a Macintosh screen for presentation or recording

The best new feature of Mac OS X 10.10 (Yosemite) is tucked away in QuickTime Player that provides a rock-solid, reliable way to display an iPad or iPhone screen on the screen of a laptop or desktop computer. 

Requirements:

* A Macintosh computer running Mac OS X version 10.10 or later

* The QuickTime player app (installed with Mac OS X, should be in your Applications folder)

* An iOS device with a Lightning connector running iOS 8 or later (devices with the old 30-pin connector will not work)

* A Lightning to USB cable

How to:

1. Connnect your iOS to your Macintosh with the Lightning to USB cable

2. Run QuickTime Player

3. Choose File > New Movie Recording (command-option-n)

4. In the display that appears, choose iPad for the Camera in the drop-down menu. This will cause the iPad to mirror onto the Macintosh screen. If the iPad screen doesn’t appear on the Macintosh screen, you may have to swipe once on the iPad screen to make it appear.

The advantage of this approach over wireless solutions that use Airplay is that it doesn’t require access to wifi. 

Cool utility for iPad demos

Here's a cool utility: Reflection lets you display the contents of your iPad 2 or iPhone 4S on your Macintosh screen. Perhaps you're projecting your Mac on a screen using a projection system, and you want to be able to quickly switch to projecting your iPad on the screen also.

Reflection uses Airplay on the iPad/iPhone to send the screens to the Mac over your wireless network. Very easy to use, and works well.

FreeHand MX on Mac OS X 10.6

A designer client of mine just bought a screaming fast 12-core Mac Pro. She'll be using it to run the usual design apps: InDesign, Photoshop, Bridge, Premiere Pro, Soundbooth, etc.

But she doesn't like Illustrator.

She wants to run her ancient copy of FreeHand MX 11.0.2 on her shiny new mac. :~(

I warned her that it probably wouldn't install or run on this new hardware and OS. And I was right. It installed, but wouldn't launch. But lo and behold, there's a tech note and solution buried on Adobe's Web site. Installing Rosetta, and then installing the Freehand Registration file included in the technote makes it possible to launch and run Freehand!

Adobe makes the following disclaimer:

No updates to FreeHand have been made for over four years, and Adobe has no plans to initiate development to add new features or to support Intel-based Macs and Windows Vista.

Freehand requires Rosetta to be installed. Rosetta provides PPC code emulation allowing applications containing PPC code to run on Intel based Macs.

Your mileage may vary. Who knows how well it works, or whether it can print/save/export/create PDFs successfully. But I thought this might be of use to someone else.

Now, time to starting learning Illustrator everyone!

Multiple monitor productivity

Eighteen months ago I wrote about the efficiency benefits of using multiple monitors. That blog post caught the eye of the folks at Sewell Direct. They are looking for folks to participate in a short survey about the benefits of multiple monitors:

"Basically we’re investigating whether there is a correlation between the number and size of one’s monitors and how much they make. While there has been a lot of talk about how they increase your productivity, we’re aiming to find out if full-time workers using larger/more displays are actually paid more."

You can participate in the very short, anonymous 5-question survey here.

iPad and Adobe

Apple is reporting today that they've sold over 300,000 iPads in the US as of midnight April 3, and that these early users have already downloaded over one million apps and over 250,000 eBooks. With all the frenzy around the release of Apple's iPad, it's interesting to note that Adobe has also jumped on the bandwagon with a free sketching app for the iPad called Adobe Ideas.

I don't have an iPad . . . yet. I'm really interested to see where this all goes. Will it change the way creatives work? Will it change the way we consume information? Will it be a great entertainment device? Time will tell. This is an exciting time to be involved in the creative, publishing or entertainment industries!

Great digital photography resource

My neighbor and extremely talented architectural photographer Paul Crosby alerted me to the "dpBestflow.org" web site.

This amazing resource, developed by ASMP and funded by the Library of Congress, contains in-depth content about all things related to digital photography, with an emphasis on best practices and recommended workflows. If you're a photographer who wants to know more about how to shoot, organize, process and archive large volumes of images, you need to check this out.

Even if you aren't a photographer, you should check out the sections on color, data storage, an excellent section on metadata, backup, and the comprehensive glossary.

Amazing, inexpensive drive adapter

Real life story: A consulting client of mine called in a panic: her Macintosh wouldn't start up. This is every designer's nightmare! It was an older Mac, she was planning on upgrading soon anyway, so this accelerated her purchase of a new Mac. But she had lots of valuable data on her old Mac.

Based on her description of the non-responsive Mac, I suspected the hard drive was OK. When her new Mac arrived, I pulled the hard drive out of the old Mac, and used the $29.99 USB 2.0 Universal Drive Adapter from Other World Computing to temporarily connect the old drive to the new Mac. It worked flawlessly. I was thrilled by how quick and simple it was, and she was thrilled to have her data back.

Yes, there are other ways to do this, but the Universal Drive Adapter is inexpensive, quick and easy. It allows almost any 2.5", 3.5" or 5.25" hard drive or optical drive to be temporarily connected via USB to a Mac or Windows computer. Highly recommended if you need this sort of thing.

Cool new extension monitor

I've written previously about the productivity benefits of having dual monitors attached to your computer. But here's a new idea...the Mimo 710. This is a tiny $129 USD, 7-inch, 800 x 480 pixel monitor that plugs into your USB port.

I can think of several uses for this:

1. For use as a second monitor on computer systems that don't have a dual video card to support two full-size monitors

2. For use as a second monitor in areas where there isn't enough desk space for two full-size monitors

3. For use as a third monitor, for those who already have two large monitors. Could be an ideal dedicated space for iTunes, IM, Twitter, or email.

4. For use as a second monitor for travel for laptop users.

Dual monitors increase productivity

My friend Dirk sent me this link to a New York Times article about the efficiency benefits of having two monitors attached to your computer. If you're looking for data to justify the expense of a two monitor configuration, read this article.

I've been touting the benefits of using two monitors for a long time. I use a dual-monitor setup in my office, and believe that once you've tried it, there's no going back to a single monitor.

20-24 inch wide screen flat panel displays from vendors such as Dell have fallen in price to the point that for many people it's no longer the display expense that is the issue. It's more an issue of clearing up desk space and making sure that the monitors match up with the output capabilities of the computer.