Get your desk surface back

If you have a laptop computer that you normally use at a desk with external monitors, you are not alone. One of the problems is that you lose much of your desk surface to cables and the laptop itself.

My setup isn't like that, however.

You can just see my laptop, nestled under the platform my monitors and speakers are sitting atop. It slides in and out of there quite happily whenever I need to disconnect it and take it somewhere with me, but most of the time it sits there happily out of the way, with all the cables safely tucked away too.

Now, there is no shortage of information on the web about how to connect your laptop to dual monitors and how to keep the laptop from sleeping when you close the lid. (Hint: in the Control Panel power settings look for 'change what happens when I close the lid' and buy one of the interfaces pictured below.)

But what you won't find very often is the tutorial for making the desk itself work. Here's all you need to make it happen:

 

Click on the pictures to view these products at Amazon. You'll need four of the pipes and one shelf. All You need to do is place the pipe lengths on your desk where the shelf will go - near the four corners of the shelf - and then just place the shelf on top of them. And that's it.

If you don't like the look of the shiny PVC, you can do what I did and using PVA glue wind some string around the ones at the front (those at the back won't be visible.)

If you want accessible USB ports like I have you can also get one of these:

Simply connect this to one of the laptop's USB ports and then use a strong fixing pad to fix this to the underside of your shelf.

Now there's three of them

It wasn't long ago I was announcing the Very Short Shorts sequel, and today there is a third.

Once again, these are collections of fifty-word stories, ten in each volume. If you're wondering what a fifty-word story can achieve, here's one from the new volume:

Miss Bronte’s outline for a sequel

In joy we married. We honeymooned, drunk on each other. But it all went wrong. Harsh words and insults became punches and kicks. He had so much anger and such strength. I did the only thing I could to save myself. Death finally stilled his rage. Reader, I buried him.

Like the first two volumes, it's a very quick read indeed and priced accordingly. Each of the books costs about a pound, a dollar, a euro - or any local equivalent. It might not fill the theatre interval, but it will cost less.

Use these links to view the book at your local Amazon site in your own currency:

     Very Short Shorts

     Very Short Shorts 2

     Very Short Shorts 3

To view all my books, many of which are available as paperbacks as well as Kindle e-books, visit this link:

     Books by Ray Blake