I posted a long time ago about MaxiVista and how I use it to extend my desktop onto my laptop. I've been using version 2 for a month or two now, and found that I like it even more than before.

Here's a recap on MaxiVista (Read my post from Jan04 for more details). MaxiVista is software that allows you to add the monitor of another machine (could be another computer, or laptop, or tablet) as an additional monitor on your computer. This isn't something like desktop sharing or VNC, it actually adds the display of the other computer as an additional display adapter on your computer. It connects to the other display via an WLAN, Ethernet, Firewire or USB connection. I just connect to it over my network. That's just awesome, but nothing new there from version 1. Now here's where things get really useful with version 2. In addition to using my laptop as an additional (third) monitor on my pc, I can use MaxiVista as a KVM (sort of - more like just the KM part). As an additional monitor, I can drag windows from my pc to my laptop's display. While that is cool, I find that I use MaxiVista now more as a KVM, so I see my normal laptop desktop, but I can drag my mouse over to it's display and now my mouse and keyboard are controlling the laptop.

When I go out of town and have to prep my laptop to take with me, this is really useful. I don't like small laptop keyboards, sure I could use my docking station, but then I need another keyboard & mouse on my desk. I could use remote desktop, but that takes the display of my pc. This way, I can get my laptop ready to go using my pc's keyboard & mouse, and all I have to do is move my mouse to the laptop screen to control it, and then back to my desktop screen to control it again. Not only that, but with a press of a single key it becomes an additional monitor and I can use it to drag an application over to it. Not bad at all.