A big thank you to Nathan C. for his very informative comic posted in the reviews. Without it's guidance, I definitely would have given myself a good whack in the face when opening the velcro strap. This thing springs out extremely quickly, like a flailing toddler arm made of steel. I went the whole "let's drill a hole into my wood furniture" route to mount this beast. I suggest having an extra person assist you if you do this. Not to drill the hole, they would just be in the way, although I suppose you could have them on hand with a fire extinguisher if you do what I did and just drill the hole in a wooden table in a closed room next to some nice flammable paper. On the upside my room smelled like a fresh outdoor campfire for a while. Anyway, once you have drilled a hole, realized it was too close to the edge for your liking, and drilled another one about an inch further up, you can now commence bolting the thing down. This is where that other person comes in handy. Have them set down the fire extinguisher, and choose whether you want them to hold the arm upright on the table, or hunch down under the desk to put the faceplate and wingnut on the bolt. If they are shorter than you and can say the word "wingnut" without giggling like a madman, I suggest you have them do this so you can keep the arm aligned with the desk and not off-kilter like a psychopath who doesn't care how their monitor feng shui is balanced. Anyway, once they slide the faceplate on and have the wingnut (heh) tight as possible, bend down and forcefully shove them out of the way. They aren't needed anymore. Double check that the faceplate is flush with the desk, and go ahead and give that wingnut one or two more twists that you can probably force into it since your helper was probably cajoled into this and has the strength of a feeble child. Go ahead and play around with the movement of the arm, and once you are satisfied that you understand the range of motion this thing has, slap your monitor on there with the screws provided. Sheepishly call back that other person you rudely pushed out of the way earlier, and have them hold the monitor at a close enough approximation so you can struggle with getting the tiny bolts aligned to their holes. Personally I started at the bottom holes, because I usually do for other tasks; and after I did the top ones it didn't look like it was laying properly so I removed them and started from the bottom. Now, we're here with a fully attached monitor screen, what's next? Unless you are an absolute madlad you probably need to connect the cords at this point. If you did all this with the cords connected, you have problems and you should seek help. Anyway, this device comes with not one, but TWO cages for your cords, lest they become unruly and try to escape. The one on top just needs a simple tug on the side that isn't attached and you can simply slide your cords into this cosy nook. The bottom arm is the final boss of this thing. There are two holes just on the underside of this arm. One is a decoy to trick you and take damage intended for the actual hole. The important hole has a screw inside, but this puppy is NESTLED in there. Now that you have the thing bolted to the desk, there is no great way to access this screw visually without the aid of a mirror. Locate the smallest mirror in your home, or break an existing one and grab a shard, and slide it under the arm, so that you might be able to determine which hole houses The Only Screw That Matters™. Rummage around in your tool box and locate a short enough screwdriver (Phillips) that can rummage around in these holes without banging into the desk and nicking the heck out of it multiple times. After a good, sweaty 15 minutes of trying to visually locate and extract the screw from it's home, becoming enraged and throwing the screwdriver across the room a few times, you should now only have about 5 more minutes before it pops out, seemingly of it's own volition. Now, squeeze, the plastic housing on the arm, and after about 5 minutes of feeling that it's about to come off, it finally will. Now, you can tuck those rebellious cords into this bottom prison. At this point you will realize that your previously well-functioning 6 foot HDMI cord is now entirely too short, since you mounted the screen waaay off to the side so you can have more room on your desk for other things, like additional screens. Rummage around in your drawers for a while until you will a longer cord into existence, or break down and buy an additional cord. I overcompensated, as I do, and bought a 15 foot cord, and now my swivel mount arm can transcend all earthly dimensions with it's range of motion, but now I have about 5 extra feet of cordage haphazardly shoved behind my desk in a tangled mess. I really should have bought the 10 foot cord. Now you can slide your new cord into it's housing and fully enjoy moving your screen around five-thousand seven-hundred and forty-eight times until you find the perfect angle, which you will inevitably lose when you try to show someone else how cool your new monitor arm is. I don't personally like their big yellow logo on the side and base, so I covered it with a piece of black tape that reasonably camouflages itself to the base, but I might put a completely different logo there in the future to trick my friends into thinking some other completely random company made it. Like hey, check out my CoverGirl monitor arm, I bet you didn't think they made those, did you. I mean they don't, but you might be able to trick them for a while and maybe they'll made some kind of social media post about it, and then you can pop up like "A-HA! You've been bamboozled!" Anyway, I recommend this swivel mounted arm, it's pretty cool.