Two Monitors For Twice The Fun
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My laptop is my primary computer, primarily because I need to be free to follow my son throughout the house during the day while we switch between homeschooling, cooking in the kitchen, outdoor play and, of course, video games in the family room.
And when it comes to surfing online while walking on my treadmill, slapping a board down on top of the handrails to hold my laptop was infinitely easier than convincing my husband to build some behemoth walk/work desk.
But for those hours before my son is up, or the late-night blogging sessions, my laptop’s screen has seemed increasingly small and dim. (It couldn’t be that my eyes are getting older. Oh, no. Not that.)
I’d always been skeptical of bloggers who say how much more productive they are thanks to dual (and sometimes triple or quadruple) monitors. Yes, it looks slick having your desktop background span across all those nice, pretty screens but I couldn’t envision that dropping programs from one screen to another could really do that much to help speed up my online work.
Then last night as my husband was cleaning out his office closet he ran across a monitor he no longer finds big enough for gaming. (What is it with men and the size of their monitors???) Rather than toss it or sell it in our upcoming garage sale, he suggested that I give the whole dual monitor thing a try, plugging the spare monitor in whenever I’m working on my laptop at my desk.
I am now officially a convert, having experienced nineteen inches of technicolor glory, with a display big and bright enough that I’m finally not squinting just to read email. (Must need a better light. It couldn’t be that my eyes are getting older.)
Of course, simply having two monitors didn’t itself make things any more simple. I wound up downloading a program that allows for one-click transfer of programs between monitors, while also giving me a separate custom task bar for each program.
Best part: being able to game in one window while blogging in the other. Yeah, I know it’s silly but you’d be amazed how just how much that’s going to help my productivity.
How have you pimped out your computer to increase the amount of work you can do? Share in the comments!
This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 15th, 2008 at 9:45 am and is filed under Blogger Toolbox. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Tagged in: dual monitor
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Top Commenters
For everything but gaming, two (if not three) monitors is now all but critical for me (very few games behave well with more than one monitor.) I’m surprised at the amount of information you can actually see and absorb without needing to stare right at it. I have one monitor front and center, then one off to the right side.
My keyboard is also critical. Default keyboards that come with computers are bad. They’re always bad, unless they’re Apple’s keyboards. (No, I’m not a fanboy. They just do this remarkably well.) The most important feature in a good keyboard is that it needs to have the keys where you expect them to be (you’d be surprised how bad this gets.) Sure sure, all the letters and numbers are the same. But all of those goofy little symbols that your fingers expect to be in a particular place need to be where you expect them.
Almost as important is that the distance each key has to be pushed in order for it to ‘activate’ has got to be very small. This is one thing (of many) which Apple does really quite well. Logitech has a couple nice keyboards in this regard. Think about it. The more you have to press each key, the more work you’re doing typing and the slower you’re going. Of course if you’re a ‘hunt and peck’ typist you probably won’t even notice the difference.
Try out your mouse before you buy one. Sorry, but the one that comes with the computer (like the keyboard) is like the headphones that came with your walkman: garbage. Until you stand there in Staples, Best Buy or some similar outlet and fondle these things you won’t even recognize the difference.
Having been writing software and otherwise spending most of my waking hours in front of a screen for more than 30 years I can tell you that not only do ergonomics matter, but so do personal aesthetics.
It really matters.
Aesthetics matter quite a bit to me, actually. I’m like you when it comes to keyboards - they have to have the right sound, the right resistance and the right spacing. I have small hands, so I prefer a laptop keyboard — hence the reason I’m looking for ways to pimp this one out until I can afford one a gaming one.
Then you won’t see me online much at all.
The irony of laptop keyboards is that because of the design requirements they have near perfect ‘click feel’ for me. But as a damn large build of a 5′11″ guy I nearly can’t use one without an external keyboard.
So how do you get along with the trackpad? I find them utterly abysmal. Or do you use the…well… I don’t have a name for it that’s not exceedingly inappropriate; mouse pointer thingie embedded in the keyboard?
I hate the nipple keyboard thingies! In the car/plane I use the trackpad, but at home I use a wireless mouse. Love that thing.
You had me at Sims 2! LOL! I don’t use dual monitors and can’t see myself going to them… just came here looking for something and thought I’d say HI.
pam’s last blog post..What she doesn’t know?
Hi!
I just upgraded my monitor from the standard, annoying, 17′ to a 20′ widescreen and flat screen monitor. And just last night I thought it’d be awesome to go and pick myself up another. Your post is a little too encouraging to drop another chunk of change and do it. I can see how I could be more productive doing this…
Katy Castro’s last blog post..Ethical Social Networking
Well, it’s one of those things which — after you’ve started using two monitors — you wonder how you lived without them before. The upside is that I don’t have headaches at the end of the day from squinting at my tiny little laptop screen. The downside is that I’m now spending far more time in my office where I can be plugged into the other monitor, when I really want to be mobile so I can be with my son.
When I first moved out to california I worked for a company that did cost estimates for land development projects. We had something like a 13000 line spreadsheet/financial model we used and the owner did a study to see if more monitors would be more productive. Each monitor added 33% to productivity.
Now all the project managers have 4 widescreens side by side. Ever since I can’t use less than two, although I’d like three…although I’m still trying to justify having 3 22 inch widescreens side by side when there are so many other things I could spend my money on.
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