Well unless your laptop is a Sony VIAO it should be able to run its internal screen and an external monitor. Now you can add a 2nd monitor with a splitter (which has an internal signal booster) or a Y video cable and run the risk of too weak a signal.

I like to run my smaller shows with a laptop rather than a desktop just due to the ease of transport and usage. Fair warning the Termlab program DOES NOT like it if your computer centrino goes into a power-save shutdown (crash and F'in burn the Termlab episode and you may get the privilege of re entering the Termlab password).