Need some tech help here guys.

So, I have this new latop for work yeah. It runs internet bidding (auction house) plus drives a slideshow on a large projector (essentially a monitor). Now the auctioneer could do with seeing when the online bids come in on a little screen on his table. But this laptop only has one VGA output.

Now what I need is the following:

Laptop screen cloned to small monitor on table.

Projector added as an extended desktop.

So essentially one monitor cloned from the laptop (primary monitor) with another monitor being an extended desktop.

The Matrox DualHead2Go will output to two external monitors but will only clone BOTH or extend BOTH. I need it both ways.

desktop + another video card.

better yet, just use a seperate system for the slideshow

i'll look into the pcmcia / usb stuff for you in a sec, but it might be a big hassle. You have PCMCIA on the laptop correct?

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This guy looks good too:
http://www.vibook.it/eng/index.html

Gork fucked around with this message on 11-29-2009 at 01:17 PM.

No PCMCIA slot, no, I haven't seen those on a new laptop for a while now. Seems they're being phased out.

What I really need is something that doesn't really give you any options, just simply copies what's on the screen and clones it to another without any input from you. Then I can use the onboard laptop functionality to run the other screen for the slideshow.

Curious -- is it possible to use a small netbook to pull in the auction bids? Or can you only run one instance of the software?

Yes I can but show me a netbook for under £100.

We've also already got the small monitor.

So that would be a gigantic waste of money right there.

There has to be something that allows me to do this. All I'm wanting pretty much is the ability to output screen capture to another screen without having to go through any setup. Just copy/paste.

That Vibook thing looks like a solid bet. I don't know if you're going to get something that will do what you want with zero configuration. It doesn't sound like a common setup.

I'll give that ViBook a whirl.

I just hate how it's one-or-the-other. You would've thought that with todays laptop graphics solutions you could do something like this relatively easily. I mean laptops now have TWO outputs (one VGA, one HDMI).. why the hell is it forcing me to only be able to use one at a time? That can fuck right off.

Thanks for the help anywho.

You may be overcomplicating the situation, if your laptop can drive two external monitors in an extended desktop configuration. It sounds like what I routinely do with my desktop at home: watch music videos on one screen, while working on the other.

I just tested a work-around on my setup that seems to do what you want. I'm assuming your presentation is powerpoint. Set up the dual monitors as an extended desktop. Open the application you want to view on the secondary monitor, where the auctioneer can see it. Open the presentation, also on that monitor. When you put it into presentation mode, it should automatically take over the primary monitor, set up for public view. You should still be able to run everything from the laptop.

Hope that made sense...

I think that does make sense, Bloodsage.. and it may just work!

Worked on my setup--may take some playing around to get it to do exactly what you need.

Good luck.

OBTW, when are you going to let me buy you a pint o' bitter? Or half-pint of cider, if you want to swing that way...I'm not here to judge.

Whenever you tell me where you live so I can stalk y-- er.. I mean come and hang out.

Nah I'm harmless really. If you wanna chill send me a PM. Tell me you have though since Drys is too lazy to fix the "you are not logged in!" bug so I never know if I have a damn PM or not.