Law Technology

The Weekend Geek: Multiple Monitor Mania

By Ross

Perhaps the single biggest productivity boost to any computer setup, whether a PC or Mac, is to move to a multiple monitor setup. What can you do with multiple displays? In a word, MORE! With a system desktop that spans two, three or even four of more displays, you can have your regularly-used apps always open and ready to use: Outlook, a browser (or two), Word or WordPerfect, your practice management system, your time entry screen, and maybe a social media interface like Tweetdeck. It’s an accepted fact that if you have your apps open, you’ll use them more v. constantly having to either ALT-TAB to open a full-screen program window or click the minimized program on your taskbar or OS X dock.

Once you move to multiple monitors, you?ll NEVER go back to single displays. And don?t forget your staff ? they?ll become instantly more productive by being able to keep several commonly used programs open and visible (billing, case management, emailer, word processor, browser, etc.)

Here’s what I recommend to get started with multiple displays in two ranges:

Cheap But Functional:

Two or three x 22″ LCD displays - something cost effective like Acer models such as the W223wbd which can often be had for as little as $150-$175 each with very smart shopping. 22″ displays are all 1680×1050 resolution and anything below 10ms response time is more than adequate.

You could look at the newly less costly 24? displays too (here?s a list of available products from tigerdirect.com, used because they have a really big selection: http://tinyurl.com/cuto25). These offer 1920×1200 resolution ? that?s a lot of screen real estate for about $250ish and

Connect to a desktop with either an internal dual display adapter (for 2 displays) for about $50-$250 - look at TigerDirect, for example,  for a huge selection (128 Mb RAM minimum - ATI and nVidia are top name brands but cheaper products can be fine too). Another route to take that doesn’t involve cracking your PC’s case is to add an external multiple monitor device such as the Matrox units described below.

Connect to a laptop or add more than two to a desktop with the Matrox DualHead2Go (digital edition for best/higher resolution connecting to DVI connectors on displays instead of VGA) (http://tinyurl.com/d6rbtg shows $188ish as the low market pricing) or three displays with the TripleHead2Go (again, the Digital Edition for LCDs with DVI connectors and support for up to 1920×1200 resolution) (http://tinyurl.com/dhadyg showing $279ish as the lowest street pricing). Search via PriceGrabber or Froogle to find the best prices. I use the former on my laptop’s docking station and LOVE it. Takes two external 22″ Acer displays I have and makes them one 3360×1050 massively wide display area. Big plus with the Matrox devices - very easy to setup.

What to avoid? USB video adapters ? cheap certainly but almost worthless, compared to the Matrox external device approach or an internal dual-port video adapter. Most models are low resolution and will frustrate you and make you wish you hadn?t bought one.

With a little bit of additional cash to burn…

Consider making one of the displays a pivoting display and keep it in that mode for full-page proofing. I like the HP series of 20″, 22″ and 24″ pivoting models. Here’s a simple search at Newegg.com for pivoting/rotating LCD displays to give you an idea of what’s available and for market pricing: http://tinyurl.com/cj3n.

Or if the sky’s the limit . . . www.digitaltigers.com and specifically http://www.digitaltigers.com/zenview-atlas20pro.asp (WOW!). And if you just won either an eight figure judgement or the PowerBall lottery, check this out.

Multiple Monitor Utility Tip: use the multiple monitor control utility called Ultramon (MUCH more control of multiple displays than the included utilities with Matrox devices and video cards and MUCH, MUCH more control than the minimalist Windows Display Properties control panel). Try it out from http://realtimesoft.com/ultramon. $40 very well spent (learned the hard way)
Once you’ve experienced multiples, you’ll never go back to singles (and get your mind out of the gutter - you know what I’m talking about!)

Full post as published by Ross Ipsa Loquitur on March 21, 2009 (boomark / email).