My computer is a Dell Inspiron Mini. That means I’m using a 10.1″ screen all the time. At first, this was annoying, but now I use a couple tricks to help get the most out of the small screen size.
Whether you’re using a netbook like this or not, you can always benefit from some extra space (and the added advantage of simplicity), so check these out:
- Hide your taskbar (the little bar on the bottom of your screen): Because of the 16:9 aspect ration I’m dealing with, I need more virtical space. So at first, I tried moving my taskbar to one side. That didn’t really work, though, so I eventually learned how to hide it (although now I auto-hide it so it pops back up when I hover my cursor over the bottom of my screen).
- Browse in fullscreen: If I’m on my computer, I’m in a browser. So the second issue for me was reducing the wasted space at the top of my browser, the space where the tabs and bookmarks usually show up. A while back, I switched to Google Chrome, which, of all the mainstream browsers I’ve tried, takes up the least space on top. But then I discovered fullscreen mode, and that takes care of everything.
- Use your zoom: This one doesn’t give you more screen space, but it can give you what extra screen space gives you: larger pages or more space in your screen. My vision, for now, is good enough to read most text even if it’s fairly small, so I don’t usually zoom in. But I do like to zoom out. This gives me more space to work with around the edges.
(Search Google to learn how to do each of these on your computer and browser.)
Now I’m rarely annoyed by the size of my computer. I get the benefits of a small netbook without the downsides of its screen.
