Screen Real Estate
One of the big problems with notebook computers is a lack of screen space. Compared with desktop computers, even the 1680x1050 screen resolution of the 17" MacBook Pro is a bit confining, especially if you’re shuffling between lots of different applications. You can also plug in a second monitor; both the MacBook and the MacBook Pro support external monitors in both video mirroring and dual display mode. But this isn’t really practical for notebook users on the road. For those folks, virtual desktops are a viable solution.
Virtual desktop programs, such as You Control Desktop, effectively create multiple copies of your screen while only displaying one of them at a time. By distributing application windows between these virtual desktops, you avoid the problem of having dozens of windows on top of each other. If you were working on a Web site, you might have a Web browser open in one virtual window, the Web page design program open in another, an image editing program in a third, and a text editor for hand-crafting HTML and JavaScript code in the fourth.
Figure 6 Use virtual desktop software to create extra screen space as you need it