Keep IT Simple

One of the great conveniences in a techie’s world is to have a laptop. A powerful desktop computer will always be stationary but a laptop could be taken to places with just one fold. It can even do things other computers can’t such as internal wi-fi or multi-card reader. If you’re not a serious gamer, a laptop is very practical. Even when you’re at home it’s easier to move around and transfer places just to get the needed inspiration to write reports, essay or that simple excuse letter why you can’t be at work again.

But laptops also have disadvantages. One of those things is its inability to handle ROM hogging programs at the same time. As we’ve said, if you’re a serious gamer, better stick with desktops to enjoy faster response. Another inconvenience is when you have so many things to do that you can’t possibly cram them in a single laptop window. For example, I have to compare my document files to excel files. You can adjust the size of each program’s window but it’s possible since you want to see the whole window because of the information they provide. That’s just a simple problem but cramming them in a 14” laptop monitor could be hard for the eyes.

If you have the same problem of cramming everything in one window, don’t worry. If you have a laptop that’s less than a year old, you’re halfway done to answer your problem, which is adding another monitor for your computer. If you have a spare monitor hanging around, that’s even better. Or you could buy a brand new LCD if you fancy even better.

The first thing you should do is to attach the LCD to your laptop. Most of the one year old laptop has a jack for regular LCD and computer monitor. All you need to do is attach it and that’s it! Configuring the additional monitor of your laptop is easier. Take note that I’m using an XP (I’m not really a fan of Vista, sorry).

Go to settings > Control Panel > Display > Settings. You’ll see two monitors numbered 1 and 2. 1 is your present laptop monitor and 2 is the attached monitor. Click on either monitor and their settings will show up. Leave 1 alone and click on 2. Check on the box that says, “Extend my Windows desktop into this monitor”. Click on “Apply” and notice your window is now extended. Simple as that.

The window will show up blank or the default desktop. All you need to do is to drag your programs to the next window. There are no taskbars on the other monitor so you don’t need to drag your eyes across the screen to know what time it is.

Remember that this will only work if you have an XP, a laptop with an external jack and an extra monitor. All these things may already be in your laptop so a simple configuration will do the trick. Now you can watch movies in another window while working on one of your projects.