Lets not beat around the bush. I'm a nerd. There's no denying it. I'm a nerd of many interests, however. Comic books, video games, TV, toys, anime, sci-fi, Star Trek, computers. Wide variety. I try to pretend I'm not, but I am. I geek out about things that most people would find excessive or boring or stupid.
One of the things I geek out about is my home computer. I want the fastest and the biggest. I don't do any read computing on my home PC but that doesn't stop me from bragging about my 3Ghz Xeon or the 2gigs of memory. I know that compared to some, that's nothing, but it makes me smile.
In the web-design industry, one of the things that people most frequently geek out about is the monitor. At work, they got me a new monitor to replace the tiny old one that I was using before. It was the biggest among the programmers and everyone ooooed and aaaahed. In the grand scheme of things, my single huge WSXGA+ was canceled out by the other guys' multi-monitor setups. Having a huge one is great, but having several is better. Scott Adams wrote a Dilbert strip about it today (http://dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20071016.html).
At home, I used to have a 21-inch Dell Trinitron CRT. That sucker was great. It let me pull off 1600x1200 (UXGA) at 85Hz. A high refresh rate is important to me because if it's set too low, the flicker gives me migraines. Unfortunately, Dell Trinitrons had a defect where one of the resistors goes out and the pictures goes way too bright. Glenn and I managed to patch it with a little solder, but it eventually gave out. I had to down grade to a 19inch we had lying around. Luckily, it also let me have UXGA at 85Hz. Unluckily, it suffered the same defect and eventually crapped out.
Needless to say, I needed to get a new monitor. By this time I had grown accustomed to the obscenely large resolution. You see, a high resolution lets you have multiple windows open and lets you spread out some. This increases productivity greatly. I'm not too productive at home, but I was still compelled to use a high resolution, as smaller ones feel cramped and uncomfortable (like downgrading from a Buick to a Civic). I finally settled on a 22 inch ViewSonic. It natively supports UXGA (which means there's actually 1,920,000 pixels on the screen) and since it's an LCD, I don't have to worry about the refresh rate (I'm not going to go into this, but suffice to say that LCD's don't work the same as CRT's). I was happy.
Last weekend, my mom brought home a ViewSonic CRT that they were throwing away at work. Of course, with an extra monitor in the house, I couldn't help but try to set up a multi-monitor setup in my room. I managed to acquire an NVIDIA Quadro4 750 graphics card which allowed me to plug my LCD into its DVI-D port while at the same time plugging the new CRT into its VGA port. Cake. So, now I've got my main LCD at 1600x1200 and my CRT at 1024x768 (the highest resolution it could pull off at 85Hz) which brings my total pixel width to 2624. That's pretty awesome, though we'll have to see what happens when I get my PCHDTV tuner card in and have to rig up some way to get my computer to hook up to my TV.
Now, this isn't my first foray into the multi-monitor world. About this time last year, I was able to nab an old generic laptop for $200 off of e-bay. I also had this extra PC set up (with its own monitor and keyboard) off to the side where I could play with SQL Server. A while back, I stumbled over an amazing piece of software while googling mult-monitor setups. It is called MaxiVista (http://www.maxivista.com/). It allows you to use the monitors of networked PCs as extensions of your main PC's monitor, essentially emulating a PC with a dual-monitor video card. In addition, if you wanted, you could use it to remotely control the networked PC instead of using it to extend the desktop (like an awesome KVM [KeyboardVideoMouse] switch, without the monitor part). This let me use the laptop to run e-mail and AIM on its processor while I used my main PC to run Photoshop on its processor, both using the same keyboard and mouse, and at the same time I could let my SQL Server run in the background doing its own thing while I used its monitor the extend my main PC's desktop.
It was a super awesome setup. I have a stereo pic of it (http://www.poonheads.com/mUpload/images/200710162234124.jpg) but I won't post it here because it's kind of big. In the end, however, I was left with only my Dell because my laptop died and I had to return the server, as it was on loan. It was fun while it lasted.
So, this morning, I got to campus at 9:30AM where I realized that Maples had canceled class. I had forgotten because I am a dumbass. Since I had another class later that day, I decided to stay on class and fool around in the computer lab while my classmates studied for their 470 exam. The room was relatively empty and I was the only person seated at a row of 4 PCs. With 4 monitors (one for each PC) lined up nicely on the desk.
That's when it struck me. I was bored and had a room full of computers at my disposal, specifically, a row of 4 unused computers with nice monitors. I knew for a fact that this particular lab was all networked together and behind a firewall because I had assisted in its networking last semester. With this setup, it would be VERY easy to set up MaxiVista in this room.
I installed the server software for the main machine on the second machine from the aisle. That way, I could have the main monitor and one on each side. I didn't want to be too greedy and use the 4th, mainly because it would be too much trouble (MaxiVista DOES support up to 4 monitors on a single server). I set everything up and it worked like a charm. I didn't think it would hurt anything because this particular lab was utilized almost exclusively for MIS classes, meaning that it would mostly be people learning Visio and Project, SQL Server and Visual Studio.
Visual Studio is what I planned on using the most here. The one thing that always aggravated me was not being able to spread out when using Visual Studio in this lab. It was filled with monitors that sported either SXGA or, because of some misinstalled drivers, XGA resolutions. Now that I had installed MaxiVista, however, I would be free to spread out as much as I wanted. A total of 3328 pixels across. I could use one screen for the main design/code window, the left screen for the properties, tools, solution and server explorer windows, and the right screen for the browser.
I was in desktop real-estate paradise. Even though few of my colleagues were impressed, in my mind I had racked up some serious geek points. I think I'll go in early on Thursday to install the 4th client on the teacher's machine which is connected to the overhead projector. Sure, it's only SVGA (800x600), but how cool would it be to have a 4th monitor that's 6 feet across to act as a heads up display?
In short, having an obscene amount of desktop real estate will change your life. Once you try it, you won't be able to go back. Whether you us one huge single monitor or multiple smaller monitors (or multiple huge monitors, which can get really pricey), it doesn't matter. With more room to spread out, you'll instantly be more productive because you won't have to switch between windows. It's essential if you're a designer or coder or other serious computer user, but it's still really fun if you're just a web surfer.
I'll leave you with this tip: If you do end up using a setup with a higher resolution, DO NOT maximize your windows. They put things in separate windows so that you can open many of them at the same time. Try putting them side-by-side. It lets you view many things at once and makes switching between browser windows, word documents, and other applications, a lot faster than having to navigate to the task bar every ten seconds. You have all this extra room... USE IT. It's kind of like a Buffet line. You don't want to cover your whole plate in just Seseme chicken. You'll want to have some low mein and egg rolls and maybe some fried rice as well. If it's a really small plate, try using two or three. Same effect, just harder to carry. And then the old Chinese lady will yell at you when you drop one of them on the floor and she has to clean it up.
Until next time,
~~Ben
P.S. I use Windows XP in a custom box. I don't know if MaxiVista works in Linux or MacOS, nor do I care. I'm 100% positive that you can have multi-monitor support in both, but I don't know how, and again: I don't care.
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Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Dual Monitors for the Masses
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