Section 14.9. Sharing Monitors

14.9. Sharing Monitors

You can share files and printers on a network, but not monitors. If you want to share your big monitor with two PCs, or perhaps your PC and your laptop, you need to physically disconnect the monitor from your PC and connect it to other computer's VGA port (see Section 1.8.1).

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Mapping an Internet Drive

Although most people stick to mapping folders that live on their own network, you can assign a drive letter to a folder on the Internet. That puts a quick pipeline to, say, your Web site storage folder, right on your desktop, letting you shuffle back and forth without using an FTP program.

Mapping a folder on the Internet is similar to mapping one on your own network: Open any folder, choose Tools Map Network, and then choose a drive letter.

The key is what you type in the Folder box (see Figure 14-13, top), since you must enter the exact words you would use when accessing the folder with an FTP program. If you're lucky enough to have access to Microsoft's FTP site, for instance, you'd enter this:

ftp://ftp.microsoft.com

A shared folder on a Web site would look something like this:

http:// webserver .com/share

Click the phrase "different user name " (it's right below the "Reconnect at logon" checkbox in Figure 14-13, top), and then type the username and password you need to access to that folder. Turn on "Reconnect at logon," and you'll have an open connection to that folder whenever you log onto your PC.

But if that gets to be a hassle, a simpler solution is to pick up a KVM switch (see Section 3.4), a box with a cornucopia of ports. Plug the monitor into the KVM switch's monitor port and then connect each PC's monitor cable to the box as well. To toggle your view between the two PCs, flip the KVM box's switch from one PC to the other.