screen resolution problem on laptop

[Bill Walton]

I've made a bootable USB drive with the 8.04 desktop LiveCD using UNetBootin.  I want to use it as a portable version of my dev environment that I can use on my Gateway laptop which has Vista installed.  My wife's the primary user of the laptop and I'm planning that when I use it I'll do all my reading and writing from / to the USB.  The laptop has a 17" screen running in 1440 x 900 mode.  I haven't discovered a way to change the resolution under Vista.  Under Ubuntu, System -> Preferences -> Screen Resolution shows one rectangle labeled "Laptop" that it shows as 17".  It shows another rectangle labeled "Unknown" that is smaller.  It give me several screen resolution options, but there is not one for 1440 x 900.  If I select 1024 x 768 resolution, the windows synch, size-wise.  Otherwise, the window is smaller than the screen, although the heron is displayed full-screen.

Two questions:
1) What exactly is the second rectangle?  What does it represent exactly?

2) Is there a driver or something I need to install to get the windowing system to set up at 1440 x 900 resolution?

TIA,
Bill
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