The poor man’s secondary display
By Marc Perton
I’ve always wanted to have multiple displays on my desktop—if only to have a second window to keep things like a media player and widgets open. But a solution like this is, alas, out of my reach. However, I recently decided to turn my “poor man’s UMPC” into a “poor man’s secondary display,” using Maxivista, a $20 program that lets you turn any computer into a display. As you can see in this picture, the secondary display is communicating via WiFi, but is still very responsive. I can’t run video on it, but it’s perfect for my needs. If I still want to use it as a tablet, I just disable it from the tray, and start working. Now I’m tempted to pick up a second cheapo tablet or old laptop to use as a third display. And, yes, my primary display is a 19-inch CRT. I still prefer CRTs, though I imagine I’ll break down at some point and replace this with an LCD (though I may just hold out until I can splurge on a 30-incher). The keyboard is, of course, an IBM Model M, and I’m not about to “upgrade” that to something newer!
