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A way to use your old Mac as an secondary display.
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0:05
hey everyone today I'm going to show you
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how you can turn your old Mac or old
0:09
computer for that matter into an
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external monitor for your current MAC so
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when you go to upgrade your Mac and then
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you have your old one sitting around if
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you didn't sell it it kind of probably
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just sits there and doesn't get much use
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and almost seems like it's a waste
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having your old Mac there uh but there's
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a thing you can do to make it useful
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again so first of all before you start
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anything you're going to want to have
0:35
your computers on the same network so
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the Mac that you're going to be using as
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your main computer and the computer
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you're going to be using as your
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external display they both have to be on
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the same network whether that be a
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wireless or a wired Network they both
0:50
have to be on the same network otherwise
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you're not going to get anything in my
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case since the computer I'm using isn't
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equipped with a wireless card and I have
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a wireless network what I did is I
1:00
strung an ethernet cord between my iMac
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and the Dell I'm using and then I went
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into system preferences sharing and I
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clicked on internet sharing and what I
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did is I turned on internet sharing so
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that I can share my connection from
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airport to computers using ethernet so
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basically what it did is it extended the
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network to that Dell computer so to turn
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your old Mac into an external monitor
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what you're going to need to do is first
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go to screen recycler.com and download
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screen recycler now you have two
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different options here you can get the
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free version or the paid version I have
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the free version for this uh the paid
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version is $29.90 but if you think about
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a $29.90 is still a deal uh if you
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consider what uh external monitor would
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cost you now just a little word of
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warning this isn't as good as an
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external monitor uh but you know it
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works and for $29.90 it's not really a
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bad deal the only difference between the
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two is with the free version you can
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only use it for certain time before it
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disconnects basically so you're going to
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go to the download page and I'm just
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going to download the free version
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here and I'm going to open this up and
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install it from here so here's the
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screen recycler folder that I downloaded
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now in it you're going to see Jolly's
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fast VNC as well as the screen recycle
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application now on your secondary
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computer the one that you want to turn
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into an external monitor you're going to
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need this VNC program if you're running
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on a Mac uh but if you're running on a
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windows-based PC you're going you're
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going to need to find a different VNC
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application and if you just go to Google
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and you search VNC there's tons of free
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VNC applications out there on the PC
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that I am demoing in this video I used
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tight VNC which is just a free
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application and it works well and it
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might actually be better for you to find
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a different VNC program rather than
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Jolly's fast VNC uh because once again
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this is a paid application but there are
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many free VNC applications out there so
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once you've downloaded screen recycler
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and you open it up and everything gets
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set up uh first of all here I'm going to
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see the trial version reminder I'm going
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to click buy later and you can see it's
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running here and it's awaiting a
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connection so down below that you're
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going to see Point your VNC client to
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and I get a couple different things and
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I'll show you what that all means in a
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second now if you go over to your
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Windows computer you're going to want to
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launch your VNC viewer at this time and
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on most of these viewers if not all of
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them you're going to see right away a
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input box that's going to ask you for
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the IP address or the name of your VNC
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server and what screen recycler is doing
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is it's making a VNC server on your Mac
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so this is where you're going to want to
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go back to screen recycler and on here
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you're going to see Point your VNC
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client to now I have a couple different
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options MS iMac dolo I could do that or
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it gives me some IP addresses that I
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could try so what I'm going to do is I'm
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going to use the IP address they listed
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here in that case it is
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192.168.1.5 and then you're going to see
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right at the bottom it says using Port
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6900 so then after I type in my IP
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address I'm going to type in Colon
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6900 and when I click connect you're
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going to see your iMac screen flash for
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a second and it's going to connect to
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the VNC
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viewer and you can see that screen
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recycler is connected now and the icon
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in the dock looks a little different you
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can see that it's connected now on your
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PC or Mac for that matter you're going
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to see it it looks and acts just like an
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external monitor now so for example if I
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open up system
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preferences and I go into the displays
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tab I already have a secondary monitor
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hooked up to my iMac uh so if I go into
5:02
Arrangement you're going to see the
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secondary monitor to the left and above
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that the third monitor that's hooked up
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with screen recycler and of course from
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here you can click and drag these around
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to rearrange them however you choose and
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you're also going to get the different
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display properties uh I could change the
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resolution and the color um all
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different things like that now the one
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downfall to this setup is that the
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second AR monitor that you have
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connected since it's not connected
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physically to your computer uh with a
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cable such as HDMI or mini display port
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or something like that you're not going
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to get the same bandwidth and speed as
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you would with a conventional
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setup so some things might be kind of
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laggy on your secondary monitor uh and
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this is expected with anything that's
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running over a network connection uh but
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but it's still it's not a monitor you're
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going to want to play video on or do
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anything very intensive I found it best
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to run a Twitter client or just
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something more stationary uh maybe throw
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a finder window up there when I want
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quick access to it but it's not a
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monitor that I'd really recommend for
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use as much as your main monitor because
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you're not going to achieve the same
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performance for example when I go into
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the displays here and I move the window
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around you can see that it's rather
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laggy now I don't know if this is a
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problem just with my NC client or or
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with my connection itself as I have seen
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other videos of this running uh for
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example if we want on the screen
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recycler website and other YouTube
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videos of people who have set up this
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same setup and it has run much faster
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for them so this could be a connection
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problem so basically the thing you're
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going to want to know is that results
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May Vary but this is all there is to it
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and it's an easy way to turn your old
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Mac or PC into an external monitor for
6:59
Mac and get some more use out of it so I
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hope you found this video useful and
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thank you for watching
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