Bluetooth Proximity Detection on OS X
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Having a keyboard shortcut is an ok way to activate the locking screensaver, but it still requires some thinking and execution allowing room for human error. Jesse David Hollington from The Technocrat has written up instructions on how to use Proximity and Applescript to lock and unlock a Mac using a Bluetooth phone. Using his instructions and a few pointers from the digg thread, I was able to get this working without much difficulty. There are still a few concerns such as general Bluetooth security, the range of Bluetooth causing my machine to almost never be locked, etc. but at least the keyboard shortcut still works and when locked with the shortcut, it doesn’t appear to unlock with the phone in proximity. |
No offense to the shall-do-no-wrong Mac community, but how is this different from what one of your Windows co-workers was doing several years ago? When he walked away from his desk, WXP would lock. When he returned, it would unlock. Is this a new to Macs, and if so, shouldn’t it be shameful news instead of an OMG NEW FEATURE FOR MACS??
Comment by DrFaulken — March 20, 2007 @ 12:48 pm
Its been doable on the Mac as well for a while (according to O’Reilly OS X got Bluetooth support in 10.2 in ‘02), I just never fiddled with it before. One of my co-workers even implemented this a couple of years ago, but the range of Bluetooth and the proximity of those willing to use his unlocked machine even when he was two rooms away as a “teachable moment” made it inpractical.
Comment by roclar — March 20, 2007 @ 1:13 pm
Sounds like someone is suffering from general Mac envy.
BTW, our Macs do plenty wrong. The iLife apps, in particular, seem to crash surprisingly often.
Comment by Tommy — March 20, 2007 @ 2:19 pm
And now the latest update to Parallels is crashing anytime I try to do something non-trivial in Wondows 2000.
Comment by Tommy — March 20, 2007 @ 9:48 pm