Scott Hanselman's Computer Zen - Get those pixels working for you

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Get those pixels working for you

Posted 2009-12-03 12:34 PM in Reviews | Tools.

I just can't say enough about multiple monitors. I've had two monitors since 2003 and three since later that same year and have been hooked ever since.

If you're working on a computer I'm convinced you need to fill your field of vision with the work at hand. Working on something important on a 15" monitor is like viewing an eclipse through a pinhole projector. I prefer to stare directly at the sun*!

I was over at Brad Wilson's house yesterday and he mentioned he was going to buy a new 27" computer and needed to get rid of his Dell 30" (3007WFP-HC). Since I freaking LOVE Dell Monitors, I jumped at the chance (after calling my wife and asking her permission) to give myself a Christmas Gift and promptly drove away with a new 30" monitor for $700.

That's insane, you say! That's too much for a monitor! I say, nay nay. Even if it lasts only a year - and it will likely last much longer - that's $2 a day for pure joy and a nice tax deduction.

This brings my collection of Dell Monitors to 4 and my collection of screens to 5. Here's the lay of the land today. I even threw the 7" iMo Mimo Pivot in there for fun.

So that's 7130 wide, and roughly 1600 tall in most places. The machine is still running the same two (now obsolete) $75 video cards as when we built the "Coding Horror Ultimate Developer Rig" a few years back.

I'm running just TWO NVidia GeForce 8600 GTS with 256megs each. They are VERY modest cards, in my opinion, but the work nicely and I still have a WEI of 6.4 for Graphics even on this two year old machine.

All you need to run multiple monitors is, ahem, multiple monitors, and a video card (or two) that has more than one connector. I have two cards that each have two DVI connectors. You can use two cards that each have one connector but you'll soon run out of slots on your PC.

If you don't have an extra monitor, maybe you have an extra laptop? You can use your laptop as an extra monitor with MaxiVista.

Get those pixels working for you! Go get another monitor!

Gone Quad - Day 0 with the Ultimate Developer PC (series)

* I'm kidding. Seriously, what's wrong with you? ;)

Thursday, December 03, 2009 1:30:37 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Nice. Is there a way to get Windows to show different background images on each monitor instead of repeating the same one over and over?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lazytom

Thursday, December 03, 2009 1:48:16 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

I totally agree. A few years ago, I went for the big Dell 30" WS and have two Dell 27" WS on each side. The 30" is for what I'm doing "now", the others are for tools--unit test windows in Visual Studio, web browsers, notepad++, etc. I'm looking forward to the pull-off features in VS2010 to use up more of the monitor goodness.

I have two cards, each with two DVI's--one card dedicated to the 30" (also used for gaming), and the other to the smaller side monitors.

I'm curious, you mention that you have 5 monitors.. and 4 DVIs. Does the tiny Hulu-esque monitor y-split off another?

drlongnecker

Thursday, December 03, 2009 2:13:44 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Once you start talking about more monitors and more pixels people are going to eventually ask how many of those are "enough". Before anyone starts asking, let me answer; you can NEVER have ENOUGH. I should know. :-)

Stefan Didak

Thursday, December 03, 2009 2:14:29 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Hell I moved to Argentina last week and still took three LCD monitors in duffel bags down there. It's a bit of a cut-back from normal, but I'm doing all right. I'm going to pick up one of those Mimo's once I get back to the states. I run Windows as the desktop OS but I can't live without Virtual Desktops when I have 2 or fewer monitors. Virtua-Win gets my vote for windows Virtual Desktop software.

Tom Ritter

Thursday, December 03, 2009 2:16:28 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

I had dual NVidia NVS 280 cards in my work machine (an HP Z800) driving 3x HP LP2475w 24" monitors and was having lots of problems with performance. Switched to a single HD 5770 card, which has 3 outputs (warning: one is display port, 2 are DVI so make sure you have at least one monitor w/ display port) and its great. I was even playing games at a decent framerate at the combined 5760x1200.

brad

Thursday, December 03, 2009 2:23:41 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Filthy dirty pixel pr0n. I'm quite jealous! I have two 24" monitors and I told my wife the other day "sweetie it's just not enough space and I need..." and let the sentence fade away. My wife is awesome, she rocks, and she keeps my feet on the ground.

"At some point you need to see the sun light"

I was convinced at that point that I was being a dork, but then you pull your "Scott and Brad make 7" monitor post and I'm back on my need for more pixels. Hanselman - my wife will be calling you.

Rob Conery

Thursday, December 03, 2009 2:24:47 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Your wife seriously OK'd a 4th monitor (5th screen) for $700? Can we get a post on techniques to improve the WAF?

Jim

Thursday, December 03, 2009 2:26:52 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

There were a bunch of good Cyber Monday monitor deals - not sure how much of that is still available.

lazytom - check out DisplayFusion for applying different backgrounds to each monitor. The free version will give you that. The pay version does a bunch more (multiple taskbars, etc).

hemp

Thursday, December 03, 2009 2:26:53 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Don't you have to be self-employed to be able to tax deduct hardware purchases?

https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawlGx3_F8oEIUBo99pqyOJED-JQMqgOI_3M

Thursday, December 03, 2009 3:15:43 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

You can never be too rich, too thin, or have too many displays.

James Foster

Thursday, December 03, 2009 3:59:15 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

...and then you come up against the docked notebook limitation. Specifically, DELL E6500 video card only supports two monitors (confirmed by Dell tech support). I have two Dell 22" flatscreens fired up, but my notebook's monitor sits in darkness. Have seen a couple of options to get it working (eg: usb adaptor). Anyone have a good solution to support both external monitors and the notebook's as a third display?? (Running Win 7, btw)

Anon

Thursday, December 03, 2009 4:05:28 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

So... how do you deal with the heat that those LCDs kick off? I've got 3x 20" LCDs and think every once in a while about getting a 4th. In fact, I had 4 for a while, but the amount of radiation/heat they were projecting at my face was over the top.

Oh... and to answer the first comment, UltraMon or SyncFusion are both must have apps if you're running multiple displays - and they both let you set up different wall papers for each monitor.

http://angrypets.myopenid.com/

Thursday, December 03, 2009 4:06:32 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Wow. You just spent $700 on a used monitor but you don't own an SSD. That hard drive score is just sad ;-)

Chris

Thursday, December 03, 2009 4:38:32 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Judging by the number of screens, I think you should buy a surface machine to replace your desk :P

bashmohandes

Thursday, December 03, 2009 5:17:46 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Chris, I had the same thought - $700 for a monitor and no SSD is soooo 2008!

https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmPTLxwR_Dy41mybbED5ITbFnlD0fqBItY

Thursday, December 03, 2009 6:32:01 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

I've been working off two monitors (15" laptop, and 19" additional monitor) since some time now. It has definitely improved my productivity because I can code and view on different screens. But 5 screens!... Human field of vision is just 6 degrees wide.

http://cyrilgupta.myopenid.com/

Thursday, December 03, 2009 10:25:48 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

kalaiyarasi

Thursday, December 03, 2009 10:28:05 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

i have more doubt in network based concept.how to communicate from one application server to another server in console application.i want coding.

kalaiyarasi

Thursday, December 03, 2009 10:31:28 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Hey Scott!

Got any plans on an updated version of the Build the Ultimate Developer PC entry? :)

https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawla-eMV3R5_X8J-Yzcvw7JoWMkOibb3MiM

Thursday, December 03, 2009 10:34:47 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

drlongnecker - The tiny monitor is USB but it's a real monitor and shows up in Windows as one. It's 800x480.

cyril - Actually human direct field of vision is 60 degrees wide, not 6 degrees.

I'm considering updating the Ultimate Developer PC, but I need to get the OK from the wife.

Chris and others - I'm adding an SSD this week I think. ;P

LazyTom - Yes, UltraMon will change your background on a monitor by monitor basis.

Scott Hanselman

Thursday, December 03, 2009 11:20:59 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Sweet setup. Do you find that a bit distracting though? I've been digging my dual 24's and have been hesitant to add a 3rd and 4th because I know my evil counter-productivity apps (email / skype) will call one of those screens home.

What's your typical "in the zone, mind like water" setup as far as apps running on those screens?

mufaka

Friday, December 04, 2009 12:35:19 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Nice setup... I just can't bring myself to spend money on anything these days so my computer is struggling with a 19" 4:3!!!

Quick statement: I hope you circulate that desktop background, unless you have a preference for Hanselman.Son.dll beta 1 over Hanselman.Son.dll beta 2 :)

Also, the 6 degree field of vision is what your eyes can focus on, though your unfocused field is large (obviously). I don't know if its 6 degrees, I heard a 2 pence coin held at arms length is what you bring into sharp focus.

In the voice of Father Jack ... more ... monitors!

Adam

Friday, December 04, 2009 1:44:49 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Very cool, you have 5 monitors?

I only have 2 monitors :)

Jack

Friday, December 04, 2009 3:50:02 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

This would make my life so much easier. I need to request a pay rise.

Mark Graham

Friday, December 04, 2009 4:00:11 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Nice, this is what I wish to have.
At the moment I use two 19" screens, one for VS and one for Outlook + the Scrum TaskBoard. What I miss is a third monitor for all my ALT tools like NUnit console, MSBuild console and so on ...
Do you have a spare one? LOL :-)

http://raffaeu.myopenid.com/

Friday, December 04, 2009 5:03:32 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

You should move the left screen somewhere else, coz it is hiding the 'real' window.
A 'real' window can be seen as an extra screen for inspiration.

Patrick Smacchia

Friday, December 04, 2009 5:39:57 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

What a multi-mon slut you are Scott, I'm so jealous! What windows do you typically put on that little USB monitor?

At home I've got two main large monitors (24" and 20") and a third one which is a small touch screen (10") which is angled slightly backwards. It's really handy having a touch screen in the mix, so you can quickly tap buttons in apps like media player or calculator.

Daniel Smith

Friday, December 04, 2009 7:04:15 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Another great piece of hardware for multi-moitors is the Matrox DualHead2Go or the TripleHead2Go. I've used the DualHead with my laptop and run 3 displays. It works great with my mac or my windows laptop.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chris_jen_young

Friday, December 04, 2009 7:19:32 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Are there any downsides to using these "splitter" devices (such as DualHead2Go) rather than multiple video adapters?

Mark R.

Friday, December 04, 2009 7:32:37 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Love to use my secondary display with my network attached tv tuners (Hava, HDHomerun). Especially during morning coffee time.

Rich

Friday, December 04, 2009 7:52:25 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

5 Monitors?
what a waste of electricity and resources.
Doing your bit to save the planet.

Mike

Friday, December 04, 2009 8:08:23 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

I am currently still saving for my 3rd since I am thinking about getting a large screen for the center and then have one on each side. Nice setup of monitors though.

Brandon

Friday, December 04, 2009 9:11:39 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Mike - Five LCDs use less energy than two CRTs, and I think my hybrid cars and vegtable garden make up any carbon offsets, Professor Positive. ;P Go read my posts on replacing all the lights in my house and the energy savings. Or the post on WHS wattage.

Scott Hanselman

Friday, December 04, 2009 9:18:59 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Hey Scott! You can't beat wikipedia :)

"sufficient resolution to read text typically spans about 6 degrees of arc.."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_span

6 Degrees wide, Yeah!

http://cyrilgupta.myopenid.com/

Friday, December 04, 2009 9:21:10 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Fair enough. I stand corrected.
You may well do more than your average joe....
but 5? that's not excessive?

Mike

Friday, December 04, 2009 9:29:06 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Mike - agreed, the fifth is only 7" and half serious. I'd say more than three, assuming I'm not a day trader is excessive. My setup IS excessive, but it got the conversation started, and hopefully it'll get devs thinking about pixels and their productivity. That's the ultimate goal.

Cyril - I'm not talking about the size of the spot on the retina. Depending on how you measure, field of view in humans is very wide. Again, wikipedia:

"For example, binocular vision, which is important for depth perception, only covers 140 degrees of the field of vision in humans"

Scott Hanselman

Friday, December 04, 2009 9:54:49 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Scott,

I actually went from 2 monitors back to one, the initial reason being I was twisting too much in my seat during the day and making a existing back problem worse. Since then though I have also found I can stay on task better; I don't have email on one side, IM, etc. to glance at every few seconds. Of course, if I were more disciplined I could have closed these apps and only had those open that related to the task at hand. That being said, I still get the biggest monitor I can afford; I like the desk space to play with.

By the way, thanks for posting your Orodev key note, despite the sound quality I enjoyed it very much, and am working on applying what you said to my email/twitter/IM/news feeds...

https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawnHuHiCc4pwPQd8NR7ZdvvjjTbCIsThsUQ

Friday, December 04, 2009 10:55:14 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Starring at the sun like George Costanza?

;)

Friday, December 04, 2009 3:14:43 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Just got one of the new Matrox Triple head displayport cards. It can handle 3 x 30" monitors at full resolution, and it has pretty low power consumption which is great for a new build. I'm running 24" Dell U2410's which I highly recommend.

I really like 24" 1920x1200 monitors and wouldn't want anything larger. There are studies saying that going from 18" to 24" increases productivity, but going from 24" to 30" actually hurts productivity. Likewise going from 1 to 2 monitors is a drastic improvement, 2-3 is a marginal improvement. Past that is bragging rights.

I could see having a 30" if I made my living doing Photography post production, otherwise it also fits in the bragging rights category :) There are times where it would be helpful, but those times would be more than offset by the time you loose normally.

Mark Kovalcson

Friday, December 04, 2009 5:50:53 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Darn, and I only have two 19".

Hector Minaya

Saturday, December 05, 2009 4:28:23 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Just so you know, MaxiVista runs in software mode. If you develop or run WPF apps, you might want to find another alternative.

Hermann

Saturday, December 05, 2009 7:21:22 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

At my last job, I had a 3x2 grid of 6 19" monitors. After working with this setup for fully 3 years, everything else feels cramped.

I just received a promotion and now I'm relegated to a laptop and a 23" monitor. I *do* feel like I'm looking at an eclipse through a pin hole.

Clifton Griffin

Saturday, December 05, 2009 10:26:44 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

I definitely have to agree with you there. I only have 2 Dell 24", but I have on vertical and it helps immensely to have more pixels. I am thinking about upgrading again. The more lines of code you can see, the more you can fit in your head at once.

John Sonmez

Monday, December 07, 2009 4:53:58 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

I have to pile on here and say that it really is a travesty that you don't have an SSD, given your current station in life. You are a full grown man now. How can you look yourself in the mirror every morning knowing that you have not had the joy of a SSD yet? This is truly an existential crisis, and needs to be explained as such to your spouse when she asks where all of the "going out" money has gone.

But given a limited money supply, I would have to say that you really need to put the SSD cash into your laptop first. That's where you'll get the sickest gain, because laptops spin down the primary HDD *all the time*. They also have slower speeds to begin with, by far, to begin with compared to your desktop. In fact, I would go so far as to say that hard drive speed is the reason I never do development on my laptop at all.

Then again, if you do most of your development on the desktop, it's worth it to at least get an 80 gig X25-M (don't forget to make sure the firmware is up to date) as your boot/Visual Studio drive. Best investment you'll ever make in performance, by far. My computer is a 3 or 4 ? year old Core2 duo and it screams with the SSD. It'll ruin you.

Dave Markle

Monday, December 07, 2009 5:13:46 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Great article, cheers. I'm inspired now! :-)

http://ianroke.co.uk/

Monday, December 07, 2009 7:10:13 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Ok seriously though, let's all vote on a new hobby for Scott now.

Tim

Monday, December 07, 2009 2:21:09 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

So now that you've shown us all these nifty monitors connected to the ultimate developer workstation, what do you use them for?

http://thelaughingdm.myopenid.com/

Monday, December 07, 2009 3:17:49 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

LaughingDM - Oh, I use them for blogging about having a lot of monitors. ;) I use Visual Studio 2010, so two monitors are for VS and Toolboxes, one is for browsing, one for outlook and one for TweetDeck and chats.

Tim - I vote for rock climbing.

Dave - I have the SSD in my pocket. I'll install this week.

Scott Hanselman

Tuesday, December 08, 2009 10:09:41 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

just cut to the chase.....

a@http://gizmodo.com/341413/alienware-curved-monitor-looks-like-its-from-another-planet

http://erolnicki.myopenid.com/

Tuesday, December 08, 2009 4:16:36 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

What SSD are you going with and are you going to blog about it?

You're monitor setup looks like to disfunctional. Can't you mount some of them on the wall or something to make things a bit more organized?

dm3281

Wednesday, December 09, 2009 5:05:06 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

I'm very much wondering if the USB VGA cards are worth anything; I don't want to play games on it, but just want to run a text editor on a third monitor.

https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawlrREXZUj8k5KGYcfHoG9SJ4uK2jMkkl-g

Thursday, December 10, 2009 1:54:32 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

The Radeon 5XXX cards can actually handle 3 displays by themselves as well and have great 3d. There' s a limitation on the displays though, I believe at least one needs to be HDMI if you use three.

Phil

Friday, December 11, 2009 5:32:26 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

Scott, you have issues :D

Enrique

Thursday, December 24, 2009 9:00:26 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

You're so lucky, i begged my wife to let me get the dell 3007 and she said NO!!!!!

homer

Saturday, December 26, 2009 3:56:23 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)

What multi-monitor software have you gone with - DisplayFusion or UltraMon?

http://nicwebb.blogspot.com/

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