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  • monitor
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e14 Contributor
e14 Contributor over 13 years ago

Hi

 

As I use my laptop for more and more full screen work I find myself alt-tab just to read things like match scores, keep track of an IRC conversation or follow items on a to-do list. While this is not exactly debilitating, it gets a little annoying and its not practical for me to carry around a second monitor. I have used a tablet a few times with a few software hacks to export a second screen via vnc but its both laggy and impractical. My idea was similar to what Lenovo had on a laptop a few years ago, a pull out screen that acted as a second monitor.

 

Maybe reusing a 7 inch tablet screen, a smaller smart phone screen or more practically a netbook screen. Something that you can literally hang off my current laptop screen and plug in via VGA.

 

Cheers

Tom

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  • benheck
    0 benheck over 13 years ago

    USB secondary monitors exist. You could try one of those.

     

    -Ben

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  • e14 Contributor
    0 e14 Contributor over 13 years ago in reply to benheck

    I have to put up my hand and admit I never thought of them. I bought a second monitor a while ago but never even though of USB powerd ones. That solves that I guess. Cheers

     

    Onto my second idea, wait, I might just do some googleing first.

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    0 e14 Contributor over 13 years ago in reply to e14 Contributor

    My second idea is not exactly big enough to be a basis for a show but you might be able to help me. Here in Ireland a lot of shops, gyms and similar use QR codes or barcodes for offers. I normally carry these on my keys as they are small plastic cards designed for it. My problem is they keep breaking and I have more and more all the time. I bought a little 1.5 digital photo keyring and just put photos of the codes on it with text above it and it worked fine for a while. The quality of the casing is quite poor and does not stand up to much punishment but that's another issue. On my keys is a free post box number that someone can just drop my keys in a post box and they are returned to me, but I did not like the idea of someone who has my keys being able to copy the codes for their own benefit and wanted someone way to protect them.

     

    I looked for simple practical solutions but everything has proved to be too bulky. Even a simple key combination setup was outside my ability to make small enough to be practical on the keyring and it did nothing to protect access to the storage via usb.

     

    Can you think of any practical way I could go about this? I hope I explained this properly.

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  • e14 Contributor
    0 e14 Contributor over 13 years ago in reply to e14 Contributor

    My second idea is not exactly big enough to be a basis for a show but you might be able to help me. Here in Ireland a lot of shops, gyms and similar use QR codes or barcodes for offers. I normally carry these on my keys as they are small plastic cards designed for it. My problem is they keep breaking and I have more and more all the time. I bought a little 1.5 digital photo keyring and just put photos of the codes on it with text above it and it worked fine for a while. The quality of the casing is quite poor and does not stand up to much punishment but that's another issue. On my keys is a free post box number that someone can just drop my keys in a post box and they are returned to me, but I did not like the idea of someone who has my keys being able to copy the codes for their own benefit and wanted someone way to protect them.

     

    I looked for simple practical solutions but everything has proved to be too bulky. Even a simple key combination setup was outside my ability to make small enough to be practical on the keyring and it did nothing to protect access to the storage via usb.

     

    Can you think of any practical way I could go about this? I hope I explained this properly.

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