Two Monitors on One Laptop?

Reader Greg Davey asks: I want to use a second monitor in conjunction with my laptop: I want to have one application on my laptop screen and another application on a second monitor. I've tried setting it up via th Display > Settings control panel, but it's not working. What does the laptop physically need for the use of multiple monitors? I'm told the laptop needs a dual video card; if so, how do I tell if my laptop has a dual video card?
Having two monitors can make you doubly productive, but setting this up on a laptop isn't always easy, as you've discovered. You took the right first step: Plugging in an external monitor to the VGA port (or possibly DVI port, depending on your laptop) and then attempting to configure the Display control panel to handle two monitors, side by side. (Just position the boxes labeled 1 and 2 and click "Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor." (See screenshot for detail.) That's all it takes... if your laptop's graphics card supports multiple monitors.
How do you know if it does? Most recent ATI and Nvidia graphics cards do, as does the Intel GMA 945G integrated graphics chip. If you have ATI or Nvidia graphics on your laptop, download the latest drivers from either the appropriate website or from your laptop manufacturer's drivers page. Windows Update can sometimes provide new drivers, too, but this isn't as reliable.
After installing the new driver, try the steps outlined above again. If you still can't get the two displays to show up, your PC probably can't support dual displays. But don't give up yet, there are other options...
Got a PC Card slot? Of course you do! You can plug the VillageTronic VTBook (or a number of other PC Card-VGA adapters), which works as a connector for a second monitor for your laptop. The quality isn't always the best on these products, and they can be expensive in some cases (especially ones that support three or four monitors), but they're worth a look if you're in a bind.
You can also do the same thing with a USB adapter. A variety of products like this one are on the market. Be aware that most are from no-name companies, reviews are spotty, and video quality isn't the best (no 3-D support at all, for example), but at least they're cheap.
Good luck. Let me know if any of these products or tips ended up working for you!

Baby Needs a New Domain Name

How's this for thinking ahead? Shortly after baby's first footprints are made in the hospital, some parents are securing another kind of identity marker: an Internet domain name.

It's hard to know just how widespread the practice is, but the AP reports that parents are snapping up domain names from companies that charge about $9 and up a year for them. Some are setting up web sites right away to share photos and moments in their babies' live, but most are tucking them away for future use. They don't want someone else to buy the names and experience what Britney Spears did when her 11-month-old son's domain name was purchased by someone else first, writes the AP's Anick Jesdanun.
But what seems forward-thinking now could be quickly outdated. As Peter Grunwald, who owns a research firm specializing in kids and technology, tells the AP: "Given the pace of change on the Internet, it strikes me as a pretty impressive leap of faith that we're going to use exactly the same system and the same tools...15 to 20 years from today."
Other parents are taking the simpler step of setting up email accounts through web-based mail services so they can send emails and thank-you's in their babies' voices to family members and friends. One mom tells the AP she'll be saving all the messages for her kids to read when they get older.
So have you secured domain names for your babies or older kids?

Protecting Your Laptop from Viruses

• What it does: Prevents certain malicious programs from infecting your computer.
  What it protects against: Viruses, worms, Trojan Horses. These programs set up operation on your computer, doing a number of nasty things, such as
  Destroying random files on your hard drive.
  Storing pornography on your hard drive and using your computer to distribute those images.
  Scanning your hard drive for valuable information, such as passwords, bank account numbers, or credit card numbers.
  Taking over your computer to launch viral attacks on other computers on the Internet.
  Taking over your computer so that spammers can spew out bulk e-mail.
  Any number of other hideous, horrible things!
  The background: In the olden days, it took an infected floppy disk or CD to give your computer a virus. That may still happen today, but most likely a virus infects your computer through an e-mail attachment.
  To protect yourself against this scourge, you need to run antivirus software. You need to run it all the time. You need to use this software to protect your computer.
  Scanning for viruses
  Windows XP doesn't come with its own virus scanner. You have to get a third-party virus scanner, such as the Norton AntiVirus or McAfee's VirusScan. Other antivirus programs to consider include
  Avast! Antivirus
  AVG Anti-Virus
  Kaspersky antivirus protection
  You can use these programs in two ways:
  Actively: To actively scan for viruses, the antivirus program does a complete scan of memory, then the hard drive, then files on the hard drive. Everything is checked against a database of known viruses.
  Passively: The antivirus programs uses the passive virus scan as your computer receives files. The program individually scans and checks each file coming in against the virus database.
  Obviously, each antivirus program does things differently. Refer to the documentation that came with your antivirus software program to see how things work.
  Sometimes it helps to have and run two different antivirus programs. Not at the same time, but perhaps run one first, shut it down, then run a second antivirus program. The second one may catch some things that the first one misses.
  Yes, some antivirus programs require a paid subscription. You don't pay for the program, but rather for accessing and updating the antivirus database. But the cost of the subscription is worth it! Don't delay in updating your antivirus database!
  Though most of the Web-based virus-scanning utilities are legitimate, you may want to avoid using them. Only trust the software if you're darn certain that it's okay; otherwise, who knows what kind of program you're letting into your computer?
  Good advice to help protect you from the viral scourge
  Viruses happen to good people, but they also happen to idiots who don't heed good advice (such as these pearls of wisdom):
  Don't open unexpected e-mail file attachments, even if they appear to be from someone you know and trust. If you weren't expecting anything, don't open it!
  Especially avoid any file attachment with these suffixes, or filename extensions: BAT, COM, EXE, HTM, HTML, PIF, SCR, VBS.
  A plain text e-mail can't contain a virus. But a virus can sneak in by using an e-mail signature or attachment!
  If you don't open the attachment and just delete the message, you can probably prevent your computer from being infected.
  If your e-mail program automatically saves e-mail file attachments, then delete those attachments from the folder that your program saves them in.
  Microsoft's Outlook Express is particularly vulnerable to e-mail viruses. Consider getting an alternative e-mail program, such as Web-based e-mail.
  The best protection against nasty programs in e-mail is to use antivirus softwa

Dealing with a Dead Laptop Keyboard

Every once in a while, a computer user ends up with a dead keyboard. You usually have an electrical or electronic culprit in a keyboard demise. An electrical breakdown may involve a frayed or broken connecting cable; failure of the keyboard's processor, which translates key strokes into scan codes that the CPUS recognizes and acts upon, may cause an electronic problem.
Poking your head in
If your keyboard stops working, open the laptop, removing whatever pieces stand in the way of getting at the connections to the internal keyboard. (These obstacles may include plastic casings, the hard drive, the battery, and sometimes much more.) Check the ribbon cable and power connector that go between the keyboard and the motherboard. Sometimes, nothing more than a loose cable causes the problem. Remove and reattach the cable, reinstall the parts that you removed, and try the system.
For this approach, and all other work that takes you inside the covers of your laptop, be sure to consult the repair manual for your machine. You may have received a copy of the manual at the time of purchase, or you may find the manual on the Internet, available as a PDF or HTML (Web page). Place the computer on a sturdy, well-lighted surface and provide yourself with numbered or lettered containers for parts. Keep a notepad and pen nearby to keep track of all of the steps that you take. You can use an empty egg container to store your computer parts; mark each of the dozen egg cups and track which cup contains which parts in your notes. Be sure to ground yourself before touching any internal part of the machine.
Going shopping
If adjusting the cables doesn't fix the problem, you can choose to replace the laptop's keyboard with a new unit.
When shopping for a replacement keyboard, you may find three types of offerings:
An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) replacement: A new unit exactly like the ones that the laptop manufacturer uses. Note that very few laptop marketers - including Dell, IBM, Compaq, HP, and Gateway - actually make their own models.
A compatible replacement: A new unit that's promised to work in your laptop although not specifically designed for that purpose. Be very careful to make sure that the seller guarantees the replacement will fit in your machine and work properly. Be very specific about the model number and the serial number, and be sure that you agree with the seller's return policy in case it turns out to be not quite as compatible as promised.
A refurbished replacement: Either a new unit removed from a laptop where other components have failed or a used unit that a competent technician has repaired. Be sure that you understand any warranty offered by the seller.
Working around
If you have a failed laptop keyboard, you can also try to find a way to work around the built-in unit. Unless the motherboard fails - which is a much more serious issue than a mere keyboard - you should be able to attach an external keyboard to a laptop. You may find this approach an acceptable workaround if you use the laptop on a desk, but you may not find it a great solution for the seatback tray of an airliner.
You can use any desktop replacement keyboard with a laptop; you only have to match its connector to an available port. Some laptops offer a PS/2 keyboard or mouse connector; or you can purchase a keyboard that uses a USB port for attachment.
You can attach a USB keyboard while the laptop is running. To safely add a keyboard that uses a PS/2 port (an option available only on older models), you probably want to turn off the laptop and install the plug for the new board before reapplying power; this precaution prevents accidental shorts or static jolts to the system.

Sharing Folders Over a Home Network

In home networking, sharing is what you do to make hard drives, folders, files, and peripheral devices available to all users of the network. You can configure your network so that the computers share hard drives (which automatically makes them share folders), or you can make it so that they don't share hard drives but can still share folders.
Even if your network does share hard drives, it's best to actually create shared folders because doing so makes it easier to get to those folders from the other computers on the network. When you open Network Neighborhood or My Network Places and double-click a computer icon, all the shares on that computer are displayed. If the only share is the hard drive, many mouse clicks will be needed to navigate through the drive to get to a specific folder.
You can create as many folder shares on your computer as you please, using the same steps you use to share a drive. Here are the basic steps (note that the options will vary, depending on the operating system you're using) in My Computer or Windows Explorer:
1. In My Computer or Windows Explorer, right-click the icon for the folder you want to share and choose Sharing from the shortcut menu that appears.
2. Select Sharing or its equivalent, depending on your operating system (for example, it might be Share This Folder).
3. Click the Shared As (or New Share or the equivalent, again depending on your operating system) button.
5. In the dialog box that opens, name the share, and optionally, enter a description in the Comment field.
Using hidden shares
You can hide a shared folder from Network Neighborhood or My Network Places. The cool thing about a hidden share is that you can get to it if you know it exists and if you know the trick for accessing it. A hidden share can be a useful location for documents you don't want other network users to see when you can't easily set security options for the computer that holds those documents.
A hidden share works only if you keep in mind the basic rules about shares:
Shares are for remote users, and they're irrelevant when somebody is using your computer. The folder you hide isn't hidden from anyone who is using your computer.
If you want to hide even one folder on a drive, you cannot share the drive, because as soon as you do, every folder in the drive can be seen. Folders are children of drives, and when you share a parent, you share all its children.
A hidden share must be a parent share, because if it's a child of a share, it's visible in Network Neighborhood and My Network Places as soon as a remote user expands the parent share.
The best way to hide a folder from everyone (users who work at the computer and users who access the computer across the network) is to make it a subfolder of a folder you're not sharing, on a drive you're not sharing.
Create a parent folder for the express purpose of creating a subfolder that you want to hide. Give the parent folder an innocuous name so that nobody who uses your computer would be curious enough to expand the folder in Windows Explorer and find your secret. For example, create a folder on your drive and name it Tools or Maintenance. Then create a subfolder and name it Logfiles or another name that seems equally boring or technical. In Logfiles, you can keep all your naughty and nice lists, and no one will suspect a thing.

Another nifty place to put a hidden subfolder is in the Windows folder (C:Windows or C:WINNT in Windows 2000). There's no reason to share the Windows folder because its contents are specific to the local computer. Other people who use the computer are unlikely to scroll through the subfolders in the Windows folders, unless they're suspicious about your ability to be sneaky.
Creating a hidden share
To hide a folder's share, follow the steps just described to create a folder share. However, when you give the share a name, make the last character of the share name a dollar sign ($). That's it, the share is hidden. Easy, huh?
Getting to your hidden share from a remote computer
When you work at a different computer and you want to get to a file that's in your hidden share, follow these steps:
1. Choose Start --> Run.
The Run dialog box opens.
2. Type \\ComputerName\ShareName in the Open text box, substituting the real names of the computer and the share.
For example, if you're trying to get to a hidden share named Logs$ on a computer named Den, type \\den\logs$. A window opens to display the contents of your hidden share.
Keeping the secret a secret
When you use the Run command, Windows saves the command. The next time you open the Run command, the last command that you typed displays. Just click OK to run the command again. Very convenient, eh? Uh, not if you share the computer with other users.
The way to prevent your command from being visible to another user is to make sure that you log off when you leave the computer you were using. This ensures that nobody else can sit at the computer using your logon name and settings. The Run commands are saved on a user-by-user basis, so when a user named Mom is logged on, only commands issued by Mom are visible in the list.

Inserting Clip Art in Word 2007

Clip art is a collection of images, both line art and pictures, that you're free to use in your Word documents. In most cases, the result is the same as inserting a picture, although you're using images from a clip art library rather than graphics files on your PC's hard drive.
Here's how you add clip art to your Word document:
1. Click the Insert tab.
2. From the Illustrations group, click the Clip Art button.
The Clip Art task pane appears.
Just as you would search your hard drive for a picture, you search the Clip Art library for artwork.
3. In the Search For box, type a description of what you want.
4. Click the Go button.
The results are displayed in the task pane. Peruse the results - you may have to scroll a bit to see all of them. If you don't find what you want, go back to Step 3 and refine your search.
5. Point the mouse at the image you want.
A menu button appears.
6. Click the menu button and choose Insert.
The image is plopped down into your document.
7. Close the Clip Art task pane by clicking the X in its upper-right corner.
Word inserts the clip art graphic right into your text, just like it's a big character, where the insertion pointer is blinking. At this point, you probably want to move the image, resize it, or do other things.
The problem with clip art is that it's inanely common. That means the image you choose will doubtless be used by someone else. This gives clip art an air of unoriginality.
Clip art libraries exist that you can buy at a software store. Because those images are stored on CDs or DVDs, you need to use the Picture command button to insert them into your documents.

Getting Rid of Red Eye in a Digital Photo

The Red Eye Removal tool in Photoshop Elements allows you to click or paint away those glowing pupils that affect pets, children, or anyone else wide-eyed and close enough to the camera and its overzealous flash. Photoshop Elements isn't the only image editor that has this feature - check your software manual to see if you can use your program to remove the nasty red eye.
To use the Red Eye Removal tool, you have to use the Options bar (which you can see in Figure 1). If you want to use the Red Eye Removal tool, follow these steps to customize the tool's effects and apply them to the glowing eyes in question:

Figure 1: The Options bar in the Red Eye Removal tool.
1. Check to see that the layer with the demonic-looking eyes is, in fact, the active layer in the Layers palette.
2. Click the Red Eye Removal tool in the Tool palette to activate it and consider the following options:
• Pupil Size: This measurement is the size of the brush that you use to paint over the red-eye.
Darken Amount: This option is the degree that you want to darken the red eyes.
3. Click in the area of the image that includes the red-eye effect.
The tool automatically seeks out the red tone and darkens it, creating more natural-looking eyes.
4. If both eyes are glowing (they usually are), you can repeat Step 3 for the second eye.

Photoshop Elements 3.0's brand-new Red Eye Removal tool doesn't work with the similar yellow or green eye effect produced in animals. Try using the Color Replacement tool instead. For best results, don't apply the same exact pupil color to both eyes. Usually, the lighting on the individual eyes is slightly different, which affects both the glow that you're trying to get rid of and the pupil color that you want. If you apply too dark or too large a pupil, the results look fake.

Should Babies Watch TV?

It's something every new parent grapples with: How much TV is too much TV?Researchers at the University of Washington have found really young kids seem to be watching a lot of it. And while they're not sure how bad that is for them, they know it's not entirely good. Here's what their survey turned up:
90 percent of children under the age of 2 watch TV and videos regularly
40 percent of infants under 3 months are, too (Three months?)
29 percent of parents whose babies are watching TV and DVDs believe the educational programming is good for their brain stimulation, though no research has proven this
Sure, every parent of a baby and young toddler needs a break, but check out the full story in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer to help you decide how much is okay. Remember that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no television for children younger than 2, and only one to two hours a day of quality programming for older children.
Resist the temptation to put TVs in children's bedrooms, too. The academy says one of out of every five children age 2 or younger has a TV in his bedroom. There's another reason this may not be a good thing — an increased risk of obesity for preschoolers who have TVs in their bedrooms.
So, truthfully, do you think babies should watch any TV or videos? Please share how you manage the balance of educational videos, TV, and good old-fashioned play with your little ones. And check out these related posts: