I’ve been meaning to write a quick post about this for a while now. Rarely does a week go by at work that someone doesn’t remark on my workstation setup and asks how to do it. Behold it in all its nerdy glory!
In some cultures, the number of monitors a man uses are a sign of his virility…
Why so many monitors? I tend to do a lot of multitasking at work and have many windows open — source code, telnet sessions, web browsers, etc. It’s nice to be able to find things at a glance, rather than have to shuffle between the multitude of open windows and applications. For a long time I muddled along with just my laptop and one external monitor, which was all that my laptop supported. I added a docking station but was disappointed to learn that this did not allow me to use additional monitors, even though it did give me additional graphics ports. What was a frustrated nerd to do?
Finally I found this lovely device:
It is a USB graphics adapter. Each one connects to a USB port and allows you to add an external monitor. In my current setup I am using two of them, and I am considering adding a third. You can buy them on Amazon for around $45 (they are the same price on newegg, last I checked). Highly recommended to anyone who has longed for extra screen real estate! I wouldn’t recommend them for PC gaming, and I haven’t tried them for HD video, but they have served me well for general use and productivity.
