Recently I had the need to take a computer from home to our office leaving our home with an extra monitor (since we had a working monitor at the office already). As mentioned previously, one machine at home has a new graphics card and one feature of this card is the ability to hook up and simultaneously run two monitors. Two monitors is something I’ve never tried working with before. I realize I could also move to a lower resolution but with my lousy eyes it makes things too small if I go much lower than 1028 x 768.

At first it seemed too awkward to use practically but then I started thinking about how it would sure be nice to have a separate window for refreshing web pages or testing out work or perhaps to take a break and play a game without having to constantly minimize and maximize windows or switch to a separate computer. Switching back to the primary monitor (in front of me) would be as easy as moving the mouse to the left using what’s known as the Horizontal View.

Example of Horizontal View:
MONITOR 1  <-------------->  MONITOR 2

This view could also be useful for keeping your instant message program open and available at all times and if you see something out of the corner of your eye (those with good peripheal vision) you could more easily address it without having to interupt your main desktop space (monitor 1). Really if you think of this setup as sort of a super wide desktop that stretches and spans the space of two monitors. It does require resituating your physical desk work area but for those who work online this might be an affordable way to grow your desktop space. This way it’s as easy as launching a browser window and then dragging it to the right and leaving it in the monitor window where it stays always maximized.

Cost for me to implement this solution?

Graphics card: $129
 +Monitor # 1: $200
 +Monitor # 2: $149
==============
$478 USD

The possibilities for this setup are exciting and I’m pretty jazzed about the connection and sort of wondering why I didn’t do this with my work area before (hope I’m not surrounding myself with more hazardous rays). Pretty slick stuff.

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