I always use a second screen except when I'm away from home with my laptop.

All you need to run a second screen is an extra video socket and a screen. Most laptops now have a video out socket and many graphics cards have dual output. I've seen some advertised under 20. Also, if you have an older computer, you can often (but not always) add an extra card and use that as well as the original - if you go that route, try to get a card that uses the same chip as the existing.

If you are only browsing the web and using Word etc. then an expensive graphics card will not help much although it would help with some photo and video apps.

As regards software, Windows has supported a theoretical 10 monitors since at least W2K. All you have to do is configure them in the display setings. When you enable extra monitors, the Windows desktop is expanded to cover both screens but the taskbar will only be on one. Most apps can be moved to the screen of choice and then maximised to fill that screen of stretched accross two.

The advantage is that you have at least double the screen area.

Jonk1
I had a bad experience with advent a few years back so it's not a brand I could feel happy with. Thanks for the rec. and hope it works out for you. I've now bought a asus eee 904HD - XP, 80gb HD for 225.07 inc delivery.

hangon

You don't need expensive specialist software to run on two screens. Windows allows you to place the software window wherever you want. You just drag and drop the top bar of the program, but need to make sure it isn't maximised to the screen it's sitting on first. Your two screens can be set up so that they become one large windows screen and you just place your software window wherever you want it.

In my experience, running a second screen from a laptop say results in a nice dual screen but the two are at lower resolution. Using any desktop PC I'd go and buy a matrox twin head graphics card. There are loads on ebay. Make sure you get the correct connection for your machine's motherboard - PCI or AGP.

I run a matrox twin head on XP and it works a dream. I do have a piece of "task specific" software which you can't buy commercially which won't run on it - it just sits halfway between the two split over two screens - but that's a rare event and all commercially available software shouldn't be a problem.

SC

If your laptop runs at reduced resolution with two screens running then I suspect it is low on graphics memory. You could try reducing the colour depth to 16bit or you may be able to allocate more RAM to the graphics in the BIOS settings.

I forgot to mention above, Another good application to run on the second screen is Remote Desktop Connection. It enables you to control another machine on your LAN that runs XP Prof. Then you can run some of the power hungry apps on the other machine.

It's a relative's machine and is a cheapo Fujitsu Seimens so graphics is pretty basic.

I didn't know about remote desktop. That's interesting. Thanks.

I thought I had the cheapest Fujitsu Seimens and that works fine with dual monitors.

Thanks guys. Keep the monitor suggestions coming.

I found this: 5 ways to fix a stuck pixel on your TFT or LCD monitor

I hope it might be of some use to someone.

Post moved to new thread!

Having bits of my house rewired and putting network cables in as well; the sparkies have put the cable in the same run as mains cables - is this OK? I thought they'd be better a few inches away.

Had my house rewired in 2002 & was told that phone/router cables should be run in their own conduit, not in the same conduit as mains supply cables. A plastic divider in double conduit was considered sufficient though as the cables would be kept apart.

SC

It shouldn't make too much difference if they are close to the mains cables so long as you haven't any electrically noisy stuff - electric motors can sometimes be a problem and welding machines certainly would be.

I'm not sure what the electrical safety regs say about it, but the main thing to be careful of is that there are no tight bends in the cable. Try for a mininum 2" radius. If you go too tight, the effect can be the same as a kink in a hose pipe.

Also, make sure they test the cables before they leave but bear in mind that a simple continuity test will not show up any tight bends.

In my experience mains frequencies don't affect network cables though they do affect the telephone and broadband. Network cables are affected by being close to monitor cables though.

Thanks folks, that's all useful to know. I presume fridges & freezers are so well insulated against interference that they shouldn't present a problem. That's about the worst of our equipment. Don't do any welding!

Our house is uninhabitable at the moment but it's a great chance to get stuff like this done whilst ceilings are down and walls are bare.

Network cables installed you say? Hmmm? Things have certainly moved on a bit in the last 50 years, for sure.

I'm 65 in a couple of days time. I distinctly remember my grandparents having electricity installed into their farm. This happened when I was 11.

Fantastic! We could use an electric light! And no longer did we have to take the heavy lead/acid glass accumulators into town to have them charged (one on charge, one on standby and one running) to run the wireless. And we could forget the paraffin lamps too! These were the ones with the fabric mantles, where you had to pressurise the paraffin and prick the spray outlet with a special pricking tool.

Happy days. But it was bloody cold then, I remember too. These days, I hardly wear a coat.

Yes, I remember when we got radiators installed in the bedrooms as well. That was exciting. My parents really had to think about whether they should do it!!

Which is the simplist website software to use, basically it must be able to design one main page or templete automatically do it for all the other pages, tried FP a few times but had to change every page one by one etc

Needs to be operated by a 2 y.o (me) lol

Check out NVU. It is an open source program that sadly has not been developed recently but there is a link to Kompozer which attemps to take it forward.

Both are fairly basic, but easy to use and are free.

I use Freewebs. Very easy to use, templates etc. I pay to not have the adverts but free if you dont mind them. (I think)

Optimist, Jeffmack thanks ;-)

Execline,
What a delightful post------takes me back more years than I care to remember, and we were lucky to have Gas mantle lighting before electricity. SD