Mac OS (formerly OS X) Microsoft Remote Desktop – a great Windows Development Tool!

My professional work is predominantly done using Windows-based tools – Microsoft Visual Studio, Microsoft Visual Studio Code (although there is a version for Mac OS), SQL Server, IIS etc. etc.

However my favourite productivity platform is Apple Mac OS. I have a reasonably powerful MacBook Pro, which I’ve got four displays attached to; the internal display, and 3 external displays. Here’s a photo of how the displays are arranged.

Multiple Displays on my MacBook Pro
Here are the Multiple Displays on my MacBook Pro

And my Windows machine, although it’s a reasonably powerful i7 Dell laptop, which can support one or two external displays, isn’t configured that way. The solution I’m using now to make working under Windows 10 a better experience, is to use Microsoft’s Mac OS based Remote Desktop App. I’m not sure when the capabilities I’m exploiting now, were introduced into the App, but the features it provides, allows me to do my development work, in a much more productive way, so I thought I’d share my experiences.

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I finally bit the bullet; I’ve given up on OneDrive, and moved to Dropbox

This was a decision it took me a long time to arrive at, and was taken with some hesitation, but now it’s done, I have no regrets. I’d persisted trying to use Microsoft OneDrive for a long, long time, and it had made good sense to use it. My family and I have had an Office 365 Home Subscription for a couple of years, to provide us all with access to the various Microsoft Office products at a reasonable price across our various devices, and platforms – several Macs, several PCs and many iOS devices. And that includes a reasonably generous 1 Terabyte of OneDrive storage for each of our 5 family members.

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Where is all my Macbook Pro’s Hard Disk Space going?

I have been mystified by the gradual decline in free hard disk space on my Macbook Pro. It accelerated over recent times, around the time I upgraded to El Capitan, and exacerbated by a temporary failure to my primary Time Machine device, and my initial instinct was to blame the new Operating System. It turns out, I was wrong. The answer was a default characteristic of how my Time Machine Backups work. Here’s what I found out.

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If you don’t have one, get yourself a password manager … now

For some time now, I’ve been using a password manager application, across multiple platforms, that I’ve found to be very effective. I’m not writing this post to specifically promote the particular application I use – it happens to be mSeven Software’s mSecure, which I’m very, very happy with, but as a call to action to those who don’t have one – go out and get one now. A recent experience that a friend had, has just demonstrated to me, just how important they are.

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