Any way to bypass LCD? Use external monitor only?

[b]

I'm on a 667 Powerbook [which I'm very happy with, BTW], and I'm 
wondering, in the interests of getting the Radeon card's 16MB of RAM 
dedicated to my external LaCie monitor, if there isn't some way to 
just use the external, and not have the system send any info to the 
built-in LCD?

I like the LCD, it's not that, I just need the external to have the 
full 16MB to drive the Quartz Extreme all the way. I use the monitors 
at thousands of colors, normally, and can set the external to 
millions of colors at 1600 X 1200, if  wish, but for intensive 
Photoshop, and some Boris FX stuff, having millions of colors at 
higher resolution would be great.

It's not life and death, which, I have a feeling, is a good thing 
<laughs>. When the LCD is dimmed all the way to black, it is still 
being 'written to', so there's no 'gain' as far as Video RAM is 
concerned. I'd heard, some time ago, that upgrading the card is out 
of the question. Does that mean that there's no way to swap Video 
cards, or, that there's also no way to get more RAM on the same card?

I appreciate any response, even if it's so-called 'bad' news. Thanks.

~flipper
Brian Stegner
ex-Editor <another nasty story, NM>