So I Moved My Office...

Drastic · February 17, 2011, 06:38:46 PM

down the hall, to the next room.

In the process of updating/upgrading everything I wanted, I may have gotten carried away with monitors?

littleman · February 17, 2011, 07:21:17 PM

Damn, can you sue all that space? I know two or three monitors increases productivity, but I'd imagine there are diminishing returns.

ukgimp · February 17, 2011, 07:34:12 PM

Nice. make my 3 screen setup seem lame.

What you got powering it?

Have you tried ultramon, that allows multiple taskbars

thesaintv12 · February 17, 2011, 07:34:41 PM

Nicely set up, looks very clean. I have multi monitors, but must get them on the wall like that.

Thank goodness for flatscreens eh, Imagine having that many CRT's!

Drastic · February 17, 2011, 08:19:35 PM

I've always had multiple monitors, dating back to win 98, minimum of 3. Huge old (well, new then) CRTs sitting on risers looked like oil derricks on my desk.

3 used to be enough but over the last couple of years, I've found myself wanting an extra. I was going to use the one on the far right which is on my slave machine, up top, and buy a match for it. Since I couldn't find close to the same size/resolution (they're all 16:9 now, this older 20 incher isn't) I just bought two to go up top and pushed that one over to the right.

When I'm heavy slinging stuff out, I find I often use one window for code, one for display of the page I'm coding, one for image editor, one for ftp and one for file management. With 3 I was having to (gasp!) minimize stuff, which slows me down. Now I have the extra room, plus room for email, webmail, music client, chat and anything else right on top. Plus a dedicated monitor for the slave machine off to the side, which used to be at another workstation. It was good to have to get up, but not conducive to productivity.

The top left is the least used, but with LED backlighting, the new ones draw much less power and are putting out virtually no heat.

I have 3 dual head video cards in my main machine, pushing 5 of those. I only use one taskbar, I've just always worked like that. I do use a hydragrid app that comes with the ati/amd cards for snapping to adjustable grids on each monitor.

I also pulled the coolers off the video cards, and added passive (huge) heatsinks. Both boxes only have CPU and quiet case fans, so now the laser printer is the loudest thing in the office.

jetboy · February 17, 2011, 09:20:03 PM

Dammit! I guess I need to raise my game. Four just seems a little lame now...

Drastic · February 18, 2011, 12:32:45 AM

Nice setup, jetboy.

I wish all my monitors were new, but I guess I need to save something for the next update.

PaulH · February 18, 2011, 05:44:23 PM

Am i the one left still using a single monitor?

ukgimp · February 18, 2011, 05:50:34 PM

Go double or triple Paul. You will never want to go back, plus it looks cool :-)

DrCool · February 18, 2011, 06:26:04 PM

Still just a double monitor setup here. One day when I really get my office set up how I want it I will probably go with a 4 monitor set up. I hate when I have to use a computer with only one monitor.

mick g · February 18, 2011, 07:29:50 PM

no me too Paul

Brad · February 18, 2011, 08:15:11 PM

Most of the time I'm using a laptop with a little 15 inch screen.

littleman · February 18, 2011, 09:11:21 PM

Quote from: PaulH on February 18, 2011, 05:44:23 PM
Am i the one left still using a single monitor?

I still am too. Just one 19 inch square monitor. I prefer the older style square monitors over the wider and lower profile ones that are the rage now. I use a tabbed windowing system though: http://fluxbox.org/screenshots/

mick g · February 18, 2011, 09:28:21 PM

yeah single 19 inch for me but i would like a dell 26 inch high res, then i see the quad set ups and think hmm i am thinking the right approach just having a single monitor

4Eyes · February 18, 2011, 09:34:32 PM

Quotethink hmm i am thinking the right approach just having a single monitor

FWIW Mick, I would take 2 smaller monitors over one big one anyday.

Currently use two, but debating the move to, either three from the same PC, or another box driving the third.