Living the dual monitor lifestyle - You're preaching to the choir!
Living the dual monitor lifestyle.
I loved the SyncMaster 172T so much that I bought another. And once I got my motherboard problems out of the way, I'm happily running a 32MB ATI AIW RADEON and a 64MB ATI RADEON 7000 PCI dual-monitor setup.
One of the really cool features that ATI provides with their drivers is Hydravision support. It lets me run multiple hardware accelerated virtual desktops (up to 9) and I can switch between desktops using their tray icon utility (in theory I can do this using a keystroke but I can't get it to work). The switch is lightning-fast - much faster than the Virtual Desktop Manager utility found in Windows PowerToys. I find that I now use one desktop for email / news stuff, and another desktop for dev stuff (running full VS.NET full screen and debugging a GUI app on another monitor was the main reason I switched to this setup). I suspect I'll use a third desktop for blogging-related stuff.[IUnknown.com: John Lam's Weblog on Software Development]
I've been utterly hooked on Multi-Monitor for about a year now. I have a Compaq Evo N800w at work with an ATI Chipset that supports Multi-Monitor with the external VGA and the integrated LCD pannel. At home I picked up a single AGP GeForce MX440 with TWO VGA outs for $129 at Fry's. I'm running a 17" monitor in a corner (because of the depth) and a 17" Viewsonic Flat Screen against the wall. Once you've lived it, you CAN'T go back. I'm even thinking about a third monitor at home.
There's a great searchable online database of Multi-Monitor setups if you have any questions about if Multi-Monitor is possible on your system (there are always compatiblity issues with motherboard chipsets, video chipsets, video drivers, etc as John can attest to!)
I FULLY recommend that ANYONE who is using true Multi-Monitor support in Windows (as opposed to the NVidia "giant NView Desktop Fake-out") pickup a copy of UltraMon from RealTimeSoft. It supports things like: Multiple screensavers, an alternate secondary taskbar for the other monitors, proportional autostretching of wallpaper, roaming profiles, and many other things. It's a multi-monitor must-have. Full Stop.
About Scott
Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.
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