[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Get More Done With These Five Upgrades here

[jpayfer]

Hey Tom -
For fear of sounding like a shameless plug (as VP of Marketing for Ergotron) - just wanted you to know we're just released a dual stand into the market for $149 - that is a sweet little product. The base "pans", so that if you want to show a colleague what's on your screens, you can just turn them a total of 360 degree. Check it the animation at:
http://www.ergotron....US/default.aspx

Let me know if you would like to review it. And thanks for your productivity message. Wellness - Productivity - and Efficiency are what Ergotron is all about. cheers, jrp

[jmjohnson]

better than KVM switch-
my notebook is now my preferred PC but with an external monitor, keyboard & mouse when at my home office desk. I still use my beginning-to-age desktop with its own monitor, but swapping keyboards & mice is a pain. I use open source Synergy to act as a network based keyboard & mouse software switch.

I have a 3rd PC in my office - a Sony notebook without a monitor (the LCD panel broke). It sits on top of a bookcase and manages my office fax/voicemail and home security functions. It runs 24X7. Rather than a KVM, it is just plain simpler to use remote access software on my LAN to access this PC.

[pcworldlcac]

I don't know but what is the use of two monitors? Can you divide your viewing on the two monitors say the 1st monitor is excel while the other is word? Why keyboards and mouse featured are cordless? Why not wireless or blutooth mouse and keyboard. Aren't it much more comfortable without wires? I understand the comfortability.

[pyrello]

The benefits of multiple monitors is not necessarily obvious if you haven't tried it before. It is not that you are able to pay attention to both of them at once, rather it makes it easier to switch between interelated tasks. For example, I do a lot of website transfers and having two monitors makes it very easy to copy the content on one monitor and paste it onto the other one. I still use Alt-Tab to switch between programs, but being able to see what I'm doing as I do it reduces errors and makes me faster at my job.

[kj1975]

I cannot imagine how I could live with less than two monitors. I use two at home, both 19 inch Dell LCDs. In my office I use three, a 24 inch flanked by two 19 inch LCDs. You just cannot beat multiple monitors. As for mice, what is up with paying $60 for a corded mouse? For that, you could buy the wireless G7 which, other than the useless adjustable weight feature, is identical. It comes with two rechargeable batteries so that while one is in use, the other is charging so you never have to worry about a dead battery. Another cool feature is the ability to slow down the monitor on the fly by increaseing the DPI of the laser via buttons just below the tilting scroll wheel. This feature is very usefull when working in ArcMap where precision matters. I no longer have to zoom in as much for precise actions. In terms of upgrades, adding a second or even third monitor has easily been the most influential upgrade I have made followed by my Logitech G7 wireless mouse. One other thing that has been helpful is the addition of the WD Raptor HDD. I have a 75 GB and a 150 GB Raptor in my sustem which is backed by a 750GB drive. the 74 GB drive is my primary HDD (C drive), the 150 is specifically for remotely sensed images and shape files while the 750 is my primary data drive. Works great.

[mphenterprises]

Hi PCWorldLCAC and welcome to the PCWorld Communities. :D






As the other members have stated, and as can be inferred by their posts, you will never know the feeling of using multiple monitors until you actually use multiple monitors. Personally, I started with two 15" LCD monitors. I have progressed a long way since then and now have a 40" monitor flanked by two 30" monitors.

Yes, you can only focus on one monitor at a time but the flexibility one gets by having multiple monitors is just phenomenal. If I may paint a picture. I can be watching television on the 40" monitor, creating an invoice on one 30" monitor, and accessing the web on the other 30" monitor. The possibilities and combinations are endless.

Granted, you do not have to go large like this. You can start small. However, over time, you will start to love the flexibility you have when using multiple monitors and will wonder how you ever got along without this setup.

[deps]

I currently am using two 19" widescreens and cannot imagine working without them. I have been using dual monitors since discovering the extended desktop years ago. I would love to use three, does windows xp automatically recognize the second video card? thanks.

[mphenterprises]

Hi Deps and welcome to the PCWorld Communities. :D




I am not sure if you are posing this question to me (since I mentioned I have three monitors) or to the article itself (since you clicked Reply on the main post). Basically, Windows XP (or Windows Vista for that matter) really only have indirect control as to whether or not the monitors are recognized.

The video card I have can handle up to four monitors. Here is a side picture of what the card looks like:




The ports you see allow me to connect the DVI -> VGA connections from my previous card:



The connections on the outsides of this picture are the VGA connectors. With this I can connect four VGA monitors to my video card. The only thing I have to do within Windows is to extend the Desktop to the additional screens and adjust the resolution of each monitor.

[deps]

Thanks,

Did not realize I could reply to the article or to one of the posters. My inquiry was to anyone, with you in mind, since you are using three monitors. You answered my question. You are running the monitors off the dual dvi inputs with a split vag converter cable. this is much easier than my original though of just adding another card with a vga or dvi connection.

Did you make the splitter or is it commercially available?



thanks again.

[mphenterprises]

deps said:

>

Quote

Did you make the splitter or is it commercially available?

No. The splitters come with the video card. I am sure that one can pick up the splitter separately.