Two screens!

[afuna]

I finally remembered to dig out the power supply cable, so now I have my brother's old 15-inch LCD monitor on and connected to my laptop.

I'm trying to use the laptop as my primary point of interaction, and moving things that I rarely switch over to, or that I want to keep on in the background on the secondary monitor.

IRC is now over there to my left *points*. So is the PDF/ebook I occasionally flip to when I want to read something briefly in between tasks.

TV shows may go there as well, though I'm still thinking about that. On balance, the screens *feel* about the same size? It could be because my brother's old LCD only supports up to 1024x728, whereas my laptop can do a higher resolution. It may also be that my laptop is only 13 inches (13.3?) but is wider, whereas my brother's old LCD... no, my new LCD monitor is just 15 inches.

I wonder if this will make me more productive? Seems worth a shot. I should try coding something...

And should I move some of the coding stuff to the left, so that I don't need to alt tab between coding windows? So much to figure out. So exciting!

ETA:
One thing that's helping me transition, and is helping me switch between applications, no matter which monitor I'm currently in, are the global hotkeys I set up using Quicksilver.

f12 for IRC
cmd+f12 for Terminal
shift+f12 for Firefox
alt+f12 for Twitter

I've mostly been using the first two, but I'm now finding much greater need for / much greater value for the last two as well :)

Comments

[denny]

I can't do web dev on a single-monitor machine, my frustration levels rise too swiftly. Even dropping down to three to two monitors has been really annoying.

[owl]

Welcome to my life. The other junior and I are still waiting for widescreens, too....

[afuna]

One screen is what I've known all my (computer-using) life! IT is so exciting to be moving up to two.


(My company gives some people two screens and shiny laptops. Meanwhile I'm lucky in that my current laptop doesn't creak as much as my old one. I've wondered why the second screen was so important for them.

Now that I've seen the wonder of two screens, I can get the logic, more!)

[kareila]

Are you afuna on Twitter as well? I don't see your ID in your profile.

[afuna]

I am! I've forgotten to update my profile (and now I'm torn between putting in afuna, or afuna_wired. afuna tends to be me more when I'm talking to people; afuna_wired is when I'm talking to myself, which... I do at times!)

[kareila]

Ah ha! I added both just in case. :)

[afuna]

Added back!

[nova]

I have chat and email one one screen (laptop) and stuff I'm working on on the larger external monitor. Works well for me. Recently I just moved my laptop from the left to right at work (more privacy). I think it was better the other way, though maybe I just need some more adjusting to get used to it.

[afuna]

I am constantly shifting my laptop to the left and to the right of my other monitor, depending on what fits my mood at the moment. IT is dizzying! I should probably pick a side.

And that division seems to make sense to me. Besides IRC, I have moved one browser window to the external monitor, so that I can easily refresh the page by sliding my mouse pointer to the left. But I'm beginning to think about moving email that thereaway.