Can it be? Mac Pro + HDTV home office?

Thu, 03/06/2008 - 07:11 — ablemac

I'm brain storming combinations for an ultra geek home office.

So lets say a person has an old laptop, and a newer, but standard level MacBook (non-Pro).

Let's give this office a secretary who happens to be trained in the Microsoft Corporate solutions like Outlook and the rest of MS Office.

Now let's add to our goals a desire to use the HDTV in the Living Room with iTunes content (Rented, Purchased, Free from the web, and self created).

Enter the Mac Pro. 8 Cores, Gigabit ethernet. Up to 4 TB internal storage. Setup Parallels with Windows XP.

We'll install Ultra VNC for the secretary to have remote access to Windows on the powerful system. We can schedule Windows to run and hide (I like the sound of that) before she's scheduled to work and every time OS X starts up. We'll just train her to shut it down when she's done each day.

As long as the old laptop has a VNC client and WiFi (even old 802.11b), the secretary will be able to log on and work with files on the Mac Pro as a sudo Windows Terminal Server. The laptop could be running Linux, Windows, or OS X (or any other OS with a VNC client). There won't be any need for personal or private files on that old laptop, so if it dies or gets lost/stolen it's only the loss of an old Laptop. And if the laptop reboots, the battery dies, lightning strikes it, it won't matter as much because she's really working in the Windows environment on the Mac Pro. She could use the Macbook or even sit at the HDTV and run Windows in full screen mode until a replacement computer could be setup for her.

The Mac Pro would be hooked directly to the HDTV via an HDMI to DVI cable. With a 720p HDTV set the resolution would max out at 1280x720 which is about as much as a MacBook (1280x800). However, if the HDTV is a FullHD set capable of 1080p then you get up to 1920x1080 which is about as much as the high resolution 17" MacBook Pro (1920x1200). Only the 30" Apple Cinema Display has more pixels than that, and most FullHD TV sets are 40" or larger, so you can sit back and still see everything.

The Mac Pro doesn't come with a built in iR sensor like all the other Apple computers, but it does support all the third party devices, and can even have Bluetooth solutions for media control (like the Sony's PS3 does).

TVs are usually not setup on a desk, so it's important to have a desk either in front of it, or to the side with the HDTV on a pivoting mount if you intend to work in front of it. Otherwise you can work remotely using the Macbook, similar to the way the secretary works, only you're controlling the Mac OS X side of the Mac Pro, which also means you can click on Parallels and bring her Windows environment to the front and interact with her on it, either for training, trouble shooting, or simply seeing if she's busy(on the computer anyway).

For the MacBook to be able to control the Mac Pro in much the same way the secretary controls only the Windows environment on the Mac Pro the Mac OS has a VNC server app built in, just open System Preferences / Sharing / Screen Sharing (or Remote Management for more options) / Computer Settings - click the "Computer Settings" button and check the "VNC viewers..." box, then click ok and close system preferences.

For more serious setups, the internet provider can provide a "Static IP Address" which can be used to connect to the system over the internet, and/or a VPN can be setup (highly recommended, but complicated). And Windows Server 2003 can be setup in another Parallels instance to run an Exchange Server, SQL server, or any other desired solution, including solutions on Linux and other OS types that run on x86 hardware. An additional copy of Windows can be run for the Ultra Geek so it'll be completely separate from the Secretary's copy. And there's more, lots more that can be done. Like hooking up one or more FireWire or USB cameras and using SecuritySpy to record and playback or stream live video while you're away.