When someone knocks on your office door, you may have a sensitive email or student work on your screen. Rather than figuring out if what is on your screen can be safely seen, use a keyboard shortcut to minimize everything so only your desktop shows.

Windows

Windows key + D (“D” is for desktop).

When your visitor leaves, that same key combination will bring back everything where it was.

Mac

Command + F3 (“F3” is for F3).

When your visitor leaves, that same key combination or just F3 will bring back everything where it was.

Windows 10* has a built-in emoji menu. Go into any program where you can type, like Word or a new email message.

Press Windows key + semicolon.

Choose an emoji from the menu.

The first page (clock icon) shows your most recently used emoji.

The magnifying glass is for search. Type what you’re looking for, like “smile.” You’ll see all of the emoji tagged with that word.

Click on the other icons to browse emoji by categories.

To close the menu, click the X in the top right corner, press the ESC key, or click anywhere that is not the menu.

Choose a skin tone

On the ‘people’ page, click on the skin tone icon in the top right corner to choose a different skin tone.

For Macs, Control + Command + Spacebar will call up the emoji menu.

Choose a skin tone

Click and hold on a person icon. You’ll get a mini pop-up screen showing the person with different skin tones.

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*If you have this icon in the bottom left corner of your computer screen, you have Windows 10.

Select the entire web address

Mouse fans: single click on the web address

Keyboard shortcut fans: CTRL-L

Click and drag into your Windows folder

Double-click on the bookmark in your folder to launch the page in your web browser

“Can I rename the link?”

Yes. The default name for the link is whatever that website’s webmaster called the page. Just as you can rename a file in your folder, you can rename your bookmarks. In your folder, right-click on the link, select “Rename,” and, well, rename it.

“I use Dropbox/Google Drive/OneDrive. Will my bookmark links synchronize across my devices?”

Yes.

“That means that when I go to a Dropbox/Google Drive/OneDrive folder on my phone, and tap on a bookmark link, my phone will open the webpage?”

Yes.

I first wrote about PhraseExpress in 2009. My new policy: if I’m still using a particular technology 10 years later, it deserves a new blog post.

PhraseExpress is a text expander (and more) for Windows, Mac, Android, and iPhone. The reviews for the mobile versions are mixed, so I’m going to limit the post to Windows. (Mac functionality is similar, I just don’t have a Mac.) PhraseExpress is free for non-commercial use. The pay-for upgrades give you more functionality that may or may not be useful to you. They’re a one-time fee – not annual subscription – for that version. For significant version upgrades which do not happen often, you’ll need to purchase again, but you’ll get a discount as a current pay-for user. Personally, I pay for the “Standard” version not because I need the features, but because I want to support the developers who maintain I product I use daily. Hourly.

Where it works

It works at the level of the operating system. If you can type, it will work. Email. Word processing programs. Your web browser – and, yes, that includes your course management system.

What it does

A text expander, like PhraseExpress, allows you to create keyboard shortcuts for longer phrases.

I have an assignment where my students write about internal and external locus of control. As I score their assignments, I don’t want to type those words over and over again. I created two PhraseExpress shortcuts. When I type iloc, it expands to internal locus of control. When I type eloc, it expands to external locus of control.

I have another assignment on the Big Five personality traits. I don’t want to repeatedly type any of the Big Five, but especially conscientiousness. I created five PhraseExpress shortcuts. Bfc, for example, expands into conscientiousness. I bet you can guess what I use for agreeableness, openness, extraversion, and neuroticism.

I don’t type out my work email address any more. I just type @h and it expands to sfrantz@highline.edu.

When students email me for an entry code to get into my General Psychology course because the system doesn’t know they meet the prerequisite, I type #entry which expands into:

I’m glad you’re interested in taking General Psychology!

Please go to the Psyc& 100 entry in the class schedule and log in with your Highline username and password. Right above the description for the course in tiny print there is a link to “request an entry code.” Click on the link and follow the instructions. Be sure to include whatever documentation you have that shows that you meet the prerequisites for the course.

Please let me know if you have any questions!

For single words, I tend to use a few letters. For sentences and paragraph, I tend to use a word preceded by either # or !. It’s a personalized system. Use whatever makes sense for you.

How to create shortcuts

After installing and running PhraseExpress, it will always run in the background.

Type the word or words you want associated with a shortcut, like conscientiousness. Highlight it, and copy it. In your system tray (icons in the bottom left of your screen), left-click on the Phrase Express icon. If you don’t see it, click the up arrow at the left end of the list of icons to see everything in your system tray.

In the pop-up menu, you will see the last 20 things you’ve copied.

Bonus: PhraseExpress expands your clipboard from Window’s one item to twenty items. Although, as of this writing, some of you have the new Windows version (Build 1809) that comes with a much-improved clipboard manager.

At the bottom of the menu, click on “New phrase…” In the pop-up window, you’ll see whatever you copied last in the “Description” box. PhraseExpress will make the description and the content of your phrase the same. You can change the description into something else. PhraseExpress is searchable, so you may want to add certain search terms here just to make it easier for you to find later. (I don’t bother to change it.) Next, what will your shortcut be? You can choose to hold down, for example, the “Alt” key when you type your shortcut. I generally don’t use these hotkeys. Again, whatever works for you. For short phrases, I just enter in the Autotext box letter combinations I’m unlikely to type but am likely to remember. In this case, bfc for conscientiousness. Click OK.

PhraseExpress will confirm that it has saved your shortcut.

That’s it.

And if that’s all you use it for, learning this much will absolutely have been worth your time.

What else it can do

Right-click on the system tray icon, select “Open Program Window,” select the “Phrases” tab, and click the “New Phrase” icon in the top left corner.

Then click anywhere in the “Phrase Content” box on the right. Instead of using “copy” to create a new phrase, you can create one this way, instead. But that’s not what I want to show you.

You have an entire menu of options at the top of the window that will allow you to do a number of very powerful things.

As an example, click on “Date/Time,” and select “Date/Time” from the dropdown menu. In the pop-up window, use the “Presets” list to choose a date/time format. PhraseExpress will add some code to the “Format” box. Click the OK button.

This will take you back to the previous “create new phrase” window. Add a description. What PhraseExpress automatically added will be highlighted in pink. In the AutoText box, type your keyboard shortcut, like #today. Since PhraseExpress autosaves, you can just close the window.

Now when you type your autotext, in this case #today, it expands to the date format you chose (month day, year): March 4, 2019.

Explore the other functions, like “Automation.” You can create a shortcut that no matter where you type it, for example, it would open a file or a folder or a webpage or a program.

Edit your PhraseExpress phrases

Right-click on the PhraseExpress icon in your system tray. Click on “Open Program Window.” In the “Folders and phrases” pane, search using a word in the description, a word in the phrase content, or your keyboard shortcut for the item you want. Click on it. Edit what you want. Close the window. Done!

Getting started

Start with a few phrases. As you get used to using your shortcuts, expand your repertoire. For my most commonly used phrases, I don’t even think about them as shortcuts anymore — @h is my email address.

Question!

“If all you need to do is type @h to get sfrantz@highline.edu, how is it that you were able to type @h and have it not expand into your email address?”

Thanks for asking, because that made this post a little tricky to write. I had to type @.h first, and then go back and delete the period.

In my last post, I wrote about how I use the news feed reader Inoreader to keep up with what’s new. I promised at the end of that post to write about how I use Inoreader in combination with the free task management tool Trello to track the content I want to add to my psychology courses the following term.

This is my Trello board as it currently stands for my Psych 100: General Psychology course. (Create as many Trello boards as you have courses.) Notice that I have a list for changes I want to make to my “Syllabus and Canvas quiz” (currently empty), a list for what I want to do in our first couple days of class, and rest are lists for each chapter. Within each list are cards. Cards can be moved by clicking and dragging. Clicking on a card will turn it over, in a way. On the card’s “flip side,” you can leave comments on the card, add a checklist, add a due date, add a color-coded label, and many more things. I wrote more extensively about Trello five years ago. It looks a little different now, but the basic functionality is largely the same.

For this post, I want to focus on how I get the interesting articles from Inoreader into Trello.

After creating the Trello board, I added each of the lists you see here, plus another seven that are off the screen to the right.

Adding an Inoreader item to a Trello board using the mobile app

If you have Trello and Inoreader both installed on your mobile device, you are ready to go.

In Inoreader, tap on a story. Tap on the “Share” icon.

Inoreader will give you a lengthy list of share options. I had to swipe to the second page of icons (see the dots at the bottom) to find the “Add Card to Trello” option.

When I tap on “Add Card to Trello,” I get this pop-up. Trello remembers the last board (on the left) and list on that board (on the right) that I last saved a card to. To change those, just tap for the drop down menu. When you change the Trello board, the list options will automatically change. Inoreader will fill in a title for the card (usually the title of the webpage) and a description (most commonly includes the url for the web page). Of course you can edit these as you’d like. When the card is to your liking, tap “CREATE”.

Adding an Inoreader item to a Trello board using your computer’s web browser

Truthfully, I haven’t found a way to easily send directly from Inoreader to a Trello board. Fortunately, the alternatives are easy!

Your best option is to work through your web browser. One option is to install the Chrome “Add to Trello” extension. When you’re on a website you want to add as a card to a Trello board, click the “Add to Trello” icon. The pop-up will usually have the title of the web page as the card title and the webpage url as the description. The Trello board and the list from that board will default to the ones you used last time. Change whatever you’d like. Click “Add,” and this new card will be added to your Trello board.

Alternatively, use the Trello bookmarklet (instructions here; it’s only 3 steps. Step one is the installation by clicking and dragging a link onto your browser’s bookmarks bar. Step two is visiting a web page. Step three is clicking on the bookmarklet in your browser’s bookmarks bar to add a card to one of your Trello boards. You can handle it!)

Below you can see the “Save to Trello” bookmarklet added to my Chrome bookmarks bar. When you’re on a webpage you want to add to a Trello board as a card, click “Send to Trello”. In the pop-up, choose your Trello board. You’ll then be asked to choose a list from that board. The card will automatically be created. The information attached to the card will be more substantial than that created by the Chrome extension. Visit your Trello board to edit the card.

Try out both the Chrome extension and the bookmarklet. Use whichever one suits your needs better.

In addition to keeping up with what’s new in technology, I keep an eye out for content that is particularly relevant to my psychology students. Rather than dig through the Internet for content, I have Inoreader fetch the content for me.

This is what Inoreader looks like. On the left, under “Subscriptions,” you can see some of the content I’m subscribed to. Inoreader periodically visits these websites looking for something new. When Inoreader finds new content, it drops it in here. You can see that I have a “News” folder that contains a subscription called “NYT > Most Shared.” These are articles the New York Times has identified as a “most shared” article. Right now there are 19 such articles waiting for that I have not seen yet.

In this screenshot, I have clicked on “NYT > Most Shared.” The most recent article in that list of 19 unread articles shows at the top of the main pane, “Iran’s Economic Crisis Drags Down the Middle Class Almost Overnight.”

To navigate through this list of articles, I can scroll down, or I can jump from one article to the next by using my keyboard. “J” takes me down to the next article in the list. “K” takes up to the previous article.

To read an article, I click on the article title, and my browser will open up a new tab to show me the article on its home website. In this example, I’m taken to the New York Times website to read the article.

Mobile app (Android and iOS)

The mobile app is just as easy to use, and the interface looks very similar to what you see with your computer’s web browser. Inoreader will sync across all of your devices. I usually use Inoreader on my Android tablet, but will sometimes use it on my phone. And if I’m at my computer, well, I’ll use my web browser to open Inoreader.

Subscribing to content by browsing

In the top right corner, click in the “Search or subscribe” box. Inoreader will show you a bunch of categories. Click on each category to browse.

After clicking on the “US News” category, of the 26 options Inoreader gave me, I chose “BBC News – US & Canada.” If you want to see what kind of content you’ll get, click on the name of the card, e.g. “BBC News – US & Canada.” If you like what you see, click the green “Subscribe” button at the top of the page.

Inoreader will give you a yellow bar at the top informing you that you are now subscribed. From that same yellow bar, you can choose to rename it something other than “BBC News – US & Canada,” you can add it to a folder (my “News” folder is a promising location for me; scroll down in the folder pop-up menu to find the option to create a new folder), and you can add a filter. A filter allows you to filter the articles Inoreader delivers to you by either content you do want or content you don’t want.

Subscribing to content by searching

Click on that same top-right box. This time, type what you’re interested in. As you type, you’ll see these options appear. Choose “Feeds about…”

This is the list of subscriptions relevant to my search term that Inoreader found that other Inoreader users are subscribed to.

Search using the term “Washington Post,” and you will get a list of all the types of articles the Washington Post is happy to send you.

Subscribing to blogs

Most blogs are written on a platform that allows their content to be fetched by Inoreader. Paste the url of the blog into the search box, http://suefrantz.com/. Select the “Add feeds from…” option. Choose the top one, “Technology for Academics,” to have Inoreader fetch my new blog posts.

Subscribing to journals from library database

You can subscribe to journals (or searches) using your college or university’s library database. Each database is different, so if you run into any trouble, your librarians will be able to help you out.

Here’s an example from the EBSCO database. I found one of my favorite academic journals, Teaching of Psychology. On the far right, clicking on the “Share” button tells me that I can choose between an email alert and an RSS feed.

I chose the RSS feed because this is the kind of file Inoreader needs to deliver the content to me. Although, as it turns out, it doesn’t matter if you choose email alert or RSS feed at that point, because both options will open the same pop-up. The top half is for those who want an email. The bottom half is the RSS feed. Just copy the RSS link, and then “Save Alert.”

In Inoreader’s search box, paste that url.

Your database may even happily send you not only article titles but also abstracts. Here are EBSCO’s instructions on how to do that as an example. But really, talk with your librarians. It will be faster.

How to unsubscribe

Now that you have a lot of feeds set up, you’re probably ready to get rid of some. Where they’re listed on the right side of your Inoreader screen, right-click the one you want to delete, and select “Unsubscribe.” That’s it.

Cost

Inoreader is free, but for a small annual fee, you get additional features. For most the free version will suit your needs. For me, the free version would probably be fine, but this is such a useful tool for me, I wanted to support the developers. I went two tiers up, bypassing the “Starter” level at $8.99/year and signed up for the “Plus” level at $17.99/year. This pricing is available through January 6. After that, you can expect it to return to non-sale pricing: Starter at $14.99/year, Plus at $29.99/year.

Once you create an Inoreader account and log in, click on the gear icon in the top right corner. Select “Preferences.” Choose “Billing and usage.” At the very top of this page, on the “Subscription plan” line, click on “Upgrade now.” You’re not committing to upgrade. This is just how you get to the page that shows you pricing and the features that come with each tier.

Conclusion

In my next post, I’ll tell you how I integrate Inoreader with Trello to keep track of the articles I might like to use in a future edition of my psychology courses.

A lot of new tech stuff I learn is too often due to me making a bone-headed decision. In this case, I created an Excel file to look at some data. Thinking I had everything I needed, I closed the file without saving it. Not two minutes later it occurred to me that I wasn’t done with it. I didn’t especially want to enter the data again. Granted, it probably didn’t take me more than 10 minutes to enter that data, but there were other things I could do with those 10 minutes — like write a blog post about how I learned how to save myself 10 minutes.

If you have MS Office 2010 or later – 2016 in my case, the Office programmers have made it easy for us.

In Excel, click on File.

Click on “Open,” select “Recent” if it isn’t already selected, and scroll to the bottom. Click on the button you’ve never noticed before: “Recover Unsaved Workbooks”

When I did that, the Microsoft Office “UnsavedFiles” folder opened, and there was my document. It didn’t include the changes I made to it immediately before I closed it without saving, but all of the data I had entered minutes earlier was there, and that was the part I didn’t want to recreate.

This process is the same for other MS office programs like Word and PowerPoint.

Alternative route to the same end

Click on File, select “Info,” click on “Manage Document,” and select “Recover Unsaved Documents.” The “UnsavedFiles” folder will open. [Does the “UnsavedFiles” folder call to mind “Island of Misfit Toys” for anyone else?]

Do you know the most common way I learn about new technology? Something starts bugging me, and I go looking for a solution.

Today’s problem? If I want to keep my existing Chrome tabs open, to open a bookmark in a new tab, I have to open a new tab and then click on the bookmark. I know. In the greater scheme of things, this isn’t a big deal. But I’ve done it a lot today. I mean, a lot. So, it’s time to learn something new. A pretty quick search gave me the answer.

The solution(s)

Hold down CTRL and left-click on the bookmark (says my wife from the other room right after I published this article.)

Or use the middle scrolling wheel of your mouse to click on the bookmark. When I middle-click on my Fa18 Psych 100 bookmark, it opens in a new tab.

“Sue, what about on my laptop touchpad? How do I get a middle click if I don’t have a middle mouse wheel let alone a mouse?”

Most laptop touchpads can be setup to simulate a middle click. I just configured my wife’s Lenovo laptop so that a four-finger tap on the touchpad equals a middle click. (Honey, if you want me to change the settings back, let me know.) The good folks at How to Geek have some instructions that may work for your particular laptop.

“Sue, that bookmarks bar looks pretty handy. How does it work?”

It should be there by default. If yours is missing, go to your Chrome settings by clicking on the 3-dot menu icon in the top right corner of Chrome. Click on “Settings”.

On the “Settings” page, scroll down to the “Appearance” section and click on “Show bookmarks bar”. If the slider is blue, your bookmarks bar is turned on.

Removing bookmarks

To remove the bookmarks you don’t want, right-click on the bookmark, and select “Delete”.

Adding a bookmark

Visit the page you want to add to your bookmarks bar. Either click the “Secure” icon and drag it to your bookmarks bar, or highlight the URL then click and drag it to your bookmarks bar.

Renaming bookmarks

Bookmarks bar bookmarks have a limited number of characters. While long website names will automatically be truncated, you might want to change to something else, perhaps even shorter than the maximum length to buy yourself a little more bookmarks bar real estate.

Right-click on the bookmark, and select “Edit…”

Change the name to something more reasonable. For the New York Times, I bet “NYTimes” or even “NYT” would be enough.

For that matter, you can delete the text altogether. In that case you’ll just see the webpage’s icon (called a favicon).

Rearranging bookmarks

To move your bookmarks around, left-click on one and drag it wherever you want it to go.

“What if all of my bookmarks won’t fit on the bookmarks bar?”

Keep adding as many as you want. You can access the ones that don’t fit by click the double-arrow icon on the far right of your bookmarks bar. All of your bookmarks that don’t fit will be listed in a dropdown menu of sorts. Those bookmarks work the same way as the ones visible on the bar. For example, I can middle-click on the NY Times bookmark to have it open in a new tab.

“Thanks for the information. But I have just one more questions. That ‘Fa18 Psych 100’ bookmark – is that a Canvas course?”

Good eye! Yes, that’s my Psych 100 course. To the right of it is my Psych 320 course, an orientation that we run through Canvas, and my sandbox test course. Because of how Canvas is built, you don’t have to log into your central dashboard to get to your courses. If I’m not logged in to Canvas, when I click on the Fa18 Psych100 bookmark, Canvas will prompt me to log it – and then immediately direct me to my course. Once I’ve logged in on one page, opening any of the other Canvas bookmarks will take me directly to those courses.

But it’s even better than that. You can bookmark any page in your Canvas course. Do you, for example, make frequent announcements in one of your courses? In that course, go to the “new announcement” page. Click and drag the URL to your bookmarks bar. Since the bookmark will just be called “new announcement,” you’ll probably want to change it to something like “Psy100 NewA”. The next time you want to make a new announcement in that course, just click on your “new announcement” bookmark.

“I’m really loving this whole bookmarks bar thing. I wish it could hold more bookmarks.”

While it can’t hold more, you can create additional bookmarks bars using a Chrome add-in called Bookmarks Bar Switcher. You could for example use it to create a bookmarks bar devoted solely to one of your Canvas courses. And another devoted solely to a different Canvas course. And another devoted solely to your favorite SueFrantz.com blog posts.

Personally, I only have one bookmarks bar, and it’s reserved for Canvas courses and stuff I don’t use all the time, but really need to get to easily when I do. Most of my bookmarks are actually stored at Shortmarks, which I first wrote about in 2011.

A veteran colleague recently advised a newly-hired professor to not send students email at 1 am. Why? Because students will come to expect that all of their professors will respond to their email inquiries at 1 am. I don’t know if that’s true, but another colleague replies to messages late at night but delays sending them until the morning for that very reason.

Outlook comes with the ability to delay sending emails. Gmail can do it with an add-in.

Gmail users: Install Boomerang. (Try the pro version for free for 30 days. After that, use the pared-down free version or pay $4.99/month for more features.)

I’ll let Boomerang help you get set up in Gmail.

For Outlook users, here are your instructions.

Outlook users: In your new message, click “Options,” then choose “Delay Delivery.”

You will get this pop-up. In the “Delivery options” section, the “Do not deliver before” checkbox will be checked. If you don’t like the date and time Outlook has chosen for you (5pm today), change it to something you would prefer. These settings will only hold for this message. Start a new message, and the date/time will revert back to Outlook’s default

Unfortunately, Outlook doesn’t give you the ability to change this default delayed send time. Fortunately, this has bugged someone who had the skill to fix it. Install SetDeliveryTime. Follow their instructions to change the default day/time.

Once the date/time is as you’d like it, click the “Close” button on the “Delay Delivery” pop-up (or press ENTER on your keyboard). The “Delay Delivery” button on your message will now be highlighted. Write your message and click “Send.”

Your message will be held in Outlook’s “Outbox” until the designated time for it to be sent. If you decide you don’t want to send it, open your “Outbox” and delete the message. Or if you want to change the time it’s sent, open the message, click on “Delay Delivery” and choose a different time.

Using the Quick Access Toolbar

If you use “Delay Delivery” a lot, add it to your Quick Access Toolbar and save yourself a few clicks. The Quick Access Toolbar is the line of icons right at the top of every MS Office program. Click on the icon to activate that function.

In this case, when I click on the “Delay Delivery” icon in my Quick Access Toolbar, I get the pop-up screen where I can confirm the date and time of delivery. When I click “Close” (or press ENTER on my keyboard) on that pop-up, the icon in the Quick Access Toolbar is highlighted.

It gets even better for those of you who like keyboard shortcuts. Press the ALT key on your keyboard. All of the Quick Access Toolbar icons are numbered. Seven has been assigned to the “Delay Delivery” icon. When I’m writing a message that I want to delay sending, I can press ALT-7 to get the pop-up. Pressing “Enter” will accept the date/time and close the pop-up.

Add “Delay Delivery” to the Quick Access Toolbar

To customize your message’s Quick Access Toolbar, open a new message. Click the down arrow to the right of the Quick Access Toolbar icons. In the pop-up, choose “More Commands”.

In the pop-up window, choose “All Commands,” then scroll down and select “Delay Delivery”. Click the “Add” button, and “Delay Delivery” will be added to your Quick Access Toolbar. If you want to move if from the last spot to a different spot, use the arrow on the far right of the window. When you’re happy with your Quick Access Toolbar customizations, click “OK”.

Now that you’re in business with “Delay Delivery”, I’m going to leave you to review all of the other commands you can add to your Quick Access Toolbar. Remember, the Quick Access Toolbar for a message is different than the Quick Access Toolbar for the main Outlook window. And, yes, you have a Quick Access Toolbar in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Happy customizing!

We are leaving in a couple days to visit my father-in-law. I want to work while on this trip, including getting my online courses ready for the fall*. Now that I routinely work with three monitors, the thought of trying to ready my courses with only my Windows laptop monitor made me a little twitchy. I travel with a small Android tablet, so surely there must be an easy way to extend my Windows laptop to that tablet as a second screen – easier that the software I used a few years ago. And there is.

Spacedesk is free.

Your Windows computer will be your primary machine. This is the computer you’re going to be working on.

Your secondary machine – the one that will just be acting as a monitor for your primary machine – can be just about anything: Android (tablet, phone), Apple (Mac, iPad, iPhone), Windows (laptop, computer), or whatever can run a modern web browser (including Linux). The device has to be able to connect either to the same wifi network as your primary machine or connect by cable to each other. Spacedesk recommends cable for a faster, more stable connection. With my devices connected via wifi, I haven’t noticed any connection or speed issues.

These instructions will be for connecting an Android device, but the Spacedesk documentation seems to cover every contingency.

Installation

On your primary device (for me, that was my Surface), download Spacedesk. You’ll need to know if your Windows computer is 32-bit or 64-bit. You can guess, and if you guess wrong, when you try to install Spacedesk, it will tell you that you need the other one. Or you can find this information pretty easily on your computer. Right-click on the Windows logo in the bottom-left corner of your screen – the symbol that gives you your start menu when you left-click on it. After right-clicking, from the menu, choose “System.” In the “Device specifications” section – about the middle of the page – next to “System type” it will say 32-bit or 64-bit.

After downloading the correct 32-bit or 64-bit software, double-click on the downloaded software. Click through the install screens. Your primary device is now ready to go.

Now you need to install Spacedesk on your secondary device (for me, that was my Android tablet). If you’re also installing on Android, on your Android device, go to the Google Play Store, and search for Spacedesk; install it, and run it. If you’re installing on an an iPad or other Apple device, use that device to search for Spacedesk in the App Store; install it, and run it. If you want to use a different device as a secondary monitor, please see the Spacedesk documentation – look for “Spacedesk Viewer Software for Secondary Machine.” Their instructions are very well-written.

Connecting your secondary monitor

After installing Spacedesk on your primary device, Spacedesk will automatically be on. Run Spacedesk on your secondary device, and if the two devices are on the same network, you’ll see the name of your primary computer pop up on the screen of your secondary device. Click on “Connection”, and the two devices will be connected.

Placing your secondary monitor

On your secondary monitor, you will see your primary device’s desktop. To use it, you will drag windows off your primary computer’s screen and onto your secondary monitor’s screen. To do that, you need to tell your primary computer where that secondary monitor is.

On your primary computer, go to its display settings. The easiest way to do that is type “change display settings” in the bottom search bar and press enter. At the top of the screen you will see a couple boxes with numbers in them. Those represent the monitors your primary computer can see. Where they are in relation to each other on the screen is where Windows thinks they are in relation to each other on your table. Click the “Identify” button. Big numbers will appear on each of your monitors. If you only have two monitors (your primary device and your secondary monitor), your primary computer screen will be 1 and your secondary monitor will be 2.

On your table, set your secondary device wherever it will be most convenient for you to use, say, to the left of your laptop. On the display settings screen, click and drag the #2 box to the left of the #1 box. Click the “Apply” button.

Now you’re ready to use your secondary monitor! Click and drag any window off your primary computer’s screen to the left – if that’s where you put your secondary monitor – and the window will appear on your secondary device. How cool is that?

Disconnecting your secondary monitor

When you’re ready to disconnect your secondary monitor, in your primary computer’s taskbar (bottom-right corner of your screen), right-click on the Spacedesk icon (you may need to click the ^ symbol to see the Spacedesk icon), and select “OFF”. Your secondary device will display a pop-up that says “Display disconnected by server.” Click “OK”. Your secondary device’s Spacedesk app will still be trying to find your primary computer to connect. Just close that app. On Android, clicking Android’s back button will close the app.

Sometimes when I would mouse over the Spacedesk taskbar icon, I would get a little Spacedesk pop-up, and because of where it was located I couldn’t right-click on the icon. Solution? I told Windows to always display the Spacedesk taskbar icon so I don’t have to click the ^ symbol to see it. To do that, search your computer for “Select which icons appear on the taskbar”. On the screen, scroll down until you find “SpaceDeskServiceTray.exe”. Click its button from “Off” to “On”. Close the screen. Now the Spacedesk taskbar icon will always be where you can easily right-click on it to turn it off and on.

Reconnecting your secondary monitor

Make sure both devices are connected to the same network. In your primary computer’s taskbar, right-click on the Spacedesk icon, and select “ON”. On your secondary device, run the Spacedesk app. Click “Connection” under the name of your primary computer, and you’re back in business!

Your primary computer should remember where you put your secondary monitor the last time you used it. If you’re putting your secondary monitor somewhere else, return to the “Change Display Settings” screen on your primary computer, move the secondary monitor box to wherever you’d like it to be. Click “Apply”.

Have multiple devices?

Yes, you can add Spacedesk to other devices and have multiple monitors. The top one is my main monitor. I can drag a window down to display it on my phone. Or I can keep dragging it down and display it on my tablet.

Word of caution about public wifi

If you are connecting all of your devices to public wifi, such as at your local coffee shop, you’re open to security risks. I recommend using a VPN, such as “Private Internet Access” for an important layer of password-protected security between you and everyone else who is on that wifi network. If you connect your laptop and your tablet to a VPN, however, they’re no longer really on the same network. They’re on the same wifi, but they’re being routed through different secure servers, so the devices don’t know they are on the same network. If they don’t know they’re on the same network, Spacedesk can’t connect them.

Public WIFI Option 1: Use the Windows 10 built-in mobile hotspot feature to connect your other devices to your laptop.

First, connect your laptop to the public wifi and run your VPN. Now your laptop is secure.

Use your Windows search box to find “Change mobile hotspot settings”. Set the “Share my Internet connection with other devices” to “On.” You’ll see the network name and password. You can change those by clicking the “Edit” button.

On your tablet or phone, you’ll see your Windows mobile hotspot name as one of the possible wifi networks you can connect to. Connect to it using the password in the Windows mobile hotspot settings. Once connected, you can now run the Spacedesk software knowing that all of your wifi-connected devices are behind a password-protected wall.

Public WIFI Option 2: Use a travel router.

I use the TP-Link N300 Portable Nano Travel Router. When I travel, I connect the travel router to the public wifi using my laptop. Once connected, it displays a password-protected wifi network that all of my devices have connected to before. Once the network is up, my tablet and my phone automatically connect to that same password-protected network – just like they do when connecting to my home network. With everything connected to same secure network on the road, I can use Spacedesk to create my second (or third) monitors.

I most often use this setup in my hotel room. The router stays on all the time. When I get back to the room, all of my devices automatically connect to the router’s wifi.

Be productive on the road, but stay safe.

*Getting my courses ready for the fall – to my semester-going colleagues, we’re on quarters, so classes don’t start next week. They start the last week of September. I’m not that far behind!