Screen Spanning Doctor
Possibly the coolest hack for any
platform, ever.
You are responsible
for the use of any information gained from this blog. Nothing here constitutes
advice and is provided for educational purposes only. I am not responsible for
any action you undertake that may damage your
computer.
One of my pet peeves is technology that is crippled purely for marketing purposes.
A capability is present, but the manufacturer hides it from the customer.
So I rejoice when a clever hacker uncovers the capability and reveals it, especially when it is done as elegantly as Screen Spanning Doctor.
Apple uses the screen-spanning feature to upsell customers to its more expensive models. But the iBook, eMac and iMac already have the ability to drive more than one display at a time -- Apple just hid it from us.
Screen spanning, also called "double-heading", is a very effective way to increase your real screen resolution. Run a browser on one screen while you have a word processor on another. Use one screen as a scratch-pad while coding or drawing on the other. Edit video on one screen, display rendered vision on the other. Join two 4:3 ratio screens for a HD-widescreen experience.
Two screens are a practical benefit when presenting -- the operator shares the PowerPoint, for instance, on an external display such as a projector or plasma while managing proceedings on the notebook's LCD.
My favourite daily activity is to play videos through the TV while the iBook's LCD shows the controller. I just wish there was a way to blank the LCD while still driving the external display, then waking the LCD on an input event such as a mouse click.
There are caveats, and a warning that some models with the Rage chip may be killed by this hack.
But even with these limitations, it is still a mighty fine hack; one of the best I have seen.
Screen spanning on an iBook -- impossible, but there it is.
One of my pet peeves is technology that is crippled purely for marketing purposes.
A capability is present, but the manufacturer hides it from the customer.
So I rejoice when a clever hacker uncovers the capability and reveals it, especially when it is done as elegantly as Screen Spanning Doctor.
Apple uses the screen-spanning feature to upsell customers to its more expensive models. But the iBook, eMac and iMac already have the ability to drive more than one display at a time -- Apple just hid it from us.
Screen spanning, also called "double-heading", is a very effective way to increase your real screen resolution. Run a browser on one screen while you have a word processor on another. Use one screen as a scratch-pad while coding or drawing on the other. Edit video on one screen, display rendered vision on the other. Join two 4:3 ratio screens for a HD-widescreen experience.
Two screens are a practical benefit when presenting -- the operator shares the PowerPoint, for instance, on an external display such as a projector or plasma while managing proceedings on the notebook's LCD.
My favourite daily activity is to play videos through the TV while the iBook's LCD shows the controller. I just wish there was a way to blank the LCD while still driving the external display, then waking the LCD on an input event such as a mouse click.
There are caveats, and a warning that some models with the Rage chip may be killed by this hack.
But even with these limitations, it is still a mighty fine hack; one of the best I have seen.
Screen spanning on an iBook -- impossible, but there it is.
Posted: Sun - April 24, 2005 at 04:52 PM
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Switxer (pron: switcher), n. - A convert to Mac OS X.
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Published On: Apr 25, 2005 05:03 PM
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Published On: Apr 25, 2005 05:03 PM