Editor’s note: The following review is part of Macworld’s Summer of Mac Gems series. Each business day until the middle of August 2008, the Macworld staff will use the Mac Gems blog to briefly cover a favorite free or low-cost program. Visit the Mac Gems homepage for a list of past Mac Gems.

Wish your Mac had another display so you could spread out your workspace? Most Macs support multiple displays, but for those that don't—or if you don't want to go out and buy another monitor—ScreenRecycler 1.16 lets you use another Mac as your second screen.

Using VNC—the same technology as Leopard’s Screen Sharing feature—ScreenRecycler “connects” one Mac's screen to another Mac over your local network.

Performance isn't as good as a direct display connection, but for text documents, palettes, and other non-demanding items, the virtual display works well.