Software can quadruple screen real estate

April 4, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

My desktop computer has a 27-inch monitor, and every day I bask in its glow. Every time I upgraded to a larger screen, I remember thinking that I could never go back to the smaller one, how wonderful all this new desktop real estate was and how much easier my daily tasks were becoming. So now you know how I feel when I have to use a laptop with a 15-inch screen.

But there may be some relief in sight.

A very clever little piece of software called MaxiVista ($39.95) lets you turn any portable PC into a second monitor for your primary computer, and it does this without adding any additional hardware.

The connection can be made using an ordinary local area network connection that supports the TCP/IP protocol such as an Ethernet, Wireless LAN, Firewire or a USB network connection. A direct connection from one laptop to another via a single direct connection using a crossover cable is also possible.

After you connect the two laptops together and install MaxiVista, you are ready to go. You tell MaxiVista which PC is the primary computer and which will use its screen as the second monitor.

Once it’s set up, the results are amazing to watch. In fact, I strongly suggest you go to the MaxiVista Web site and see the video demonstration for yourself.

Try to envision up to four laptops (with the professional version, $49.95) sitting on a desk, side by side. As you grab a window and move it from, let’s say the right to the left side of the screen, instead of the left edge of the window disappearing off the left edge of the screen, you see the window’s left edge appear smoothly onto the right side portion of the other computer’s screen. It’s as if your viewing area has literally doubled, tripled, even quadrupled, and you know what? It has.

Watching a window move smoothly between the screens takes a bit of time to get over the gee-whiz factor.

But once you get the idea, you can use the newly found real estate as you would with a bigger screen. You can stretch a single window to span across multiple monitors, which is ideal for those times when you want to see all the columns in a spreadsheet simultaneously, for example.

And all of this, according to the company, does not degrade your system’s performance.

This is accomplished by only changing what needs to be changed on multiple screens rather than having to send full screen data at a constant rate. In addition, the software uses compression to achieve the fastest results possible.

Comparing MaxiVista to a hardware solution is a no-brainer. Your laptop might not have an external monitor connection to pull this off.

A hardware solution might easily cost you hundreds more, and though there are some add-on video cards available, they are just not available for all models.

Even if there is one available, that usually means having to crack open the portable, which can get a bit dicey. MaxiVista offers an easy-to-install option that will work with most any network-enabled PC.

If you’re tired of having to watch a smaller screen on a laptop PC, you should definitely set your sights on this software solution.

For more information, visit www.maxivista.com.

Craig Crossman is a national newspaper columnist writing about computers and technology. For more information, visit his Web site at www.computeramerica.com.

2010 McClatchy Tribune