Laptop screen real estate

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

I currently use an old laptop to run the mount and camera and remote control it using Teamviewer from a newer laptop that I also use for image processing. The new machine is 1920x1080 whereas the old one is only 1366x768.

I'm looking for a way to increase the available screen space on the old machine as it can be a bit cluttered with SGP,PHD2 etc. I was originally going to purchase a "Headless Ghost" or FIT Headless adaptor and trick the old laptop into thinking it had a 1920x1080 FHD monitor connected to it.

https://www.headlessghost.com/

http://www.fit-pc.com/web/products/fit-headless/

While I think this will work, I'm wondering if there is another way to make the old machine think it has more screen area? I started looking into GiMeSpace however Avast thinks it contains malware so that idea hasn't progressed very far.

http://www.gimespace.com/

Has anyone found a way to tackle this or does anyone have any positive experience with GiMeSpace - is the avast report a false positive?

Also will Teamviewer work with a second monitor using headless ghost or similar?

Cheers,

Peter

[Camelopardalis (Dunk)]

I use one of those Intel NUC machines headless. They run off 12v, have built-in wifi, room for a proper SSD, even the entry level ones come in quad-core...I have one of those that is Atom-based and it draws 2W in the field. Then I RDP into it from an iPad...but since RDP is the MS standard it's included in Windows and works well from other computers too. It's fast enough that I even use this approach now with planetary imaging...

Just a thought.

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

Thanks Dunk. I've subsequently done some testing by plugging a 1920x1080 monitor into the old laptop and this works well with Teamviewer so I'm going to give the Headless Ghost approach a try.

[Camelopardalis (Dunk)]

Even better

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

The headless ghost arrived today. Works as expected. Happy days.

[sil (Steve)]

There are also utilities for non-linux OSes that give you virtual desktops. These let you move programs (still running) to a new fresh desktop, so in practice you can put your utility stuff you dont need to see constantly on the second desktop and leave capturing on the first. You usually get four desktops to play with so you can switch at any time and you can spread out your program windows to make best use of your screen real estate at all times.