Advice: Two screens are better than one

What used to be the height of luxury for computer professionals has now become an affordable and very real productivity boost for small businesses: adding a second monitor to your computer.

Sure, you’ve seen the movies where the bad-guy-computer-hacker has 17 monitors and can simultaneously tap into the CIA’s secrets AND play computer chess at the same time – but seriously, why bother with two computer screens?

Why bother?

Well, firstly and fore-mostly, there’s a huge gain in productivity. 

As a business computer user, you’ll no doubt have a range of programs open at the same time. Typically, your email stays open all day, plus your main one or two applications specific to your job, as well as the two, three or more obligatory web browser windows. 

To switch between programs, Windows users have their Task Bar and Mac users have their Dock, and both platforms have their Alt-Tab functionality to switch between open applications without reaching for the mouse at all. Add to that your files and folders that you’re currently working with, and your add-on panels of Skype windows or your Instant Messaging programs, and it all stacks up to a lot of open windows, overlapping each other, fighting for your attention.

Adding a second screen simply gives you more screen ‘real estate’. It’s the equivalent of having a bigger desk or a bigger office. (Yes, yes, that also means that there’s more that you can make a mess in, but don’t go there, yet. I’ll cover it in a minute.)

Adding more screen space lets you: view more columns in your Excel spreadsheet; compare different documents side by side (or one document on each screen); use your main screen for your working screen, and your second screen for your open folders and files… 

The boost in productivity has been measured by many research teams, from anywhere between a simple 10% gain when doing simple cut and paste tasks, right up to a 40% gain when doing comparison analysis or any ‘large document’ work.

The second reason to bother about adding a second monitor – especially in recent years – is the falling price of really decent monitors. You can’t buy a CRT screen (the big bulky ones) anymore, only LCD screen (the flat ones!). And you used to only buy 15″ or 17″ LCD screens a few years back – anything more than that size and you’d pay a premium. 

Well, now the ‘premium’ price tags start at monitors at or above 24″ in size – yet underneath that, there’s a wide range of 19″, 20″ and 22″ screens for $200 or so. And if you don’t want to buy one specifically, then there’s a whole truckload of 15″ and some 17″ screens being dumped from corporate every day – check your local computer markets and computer recyclers – $20 in cold hard cash will get you a long way towards something decent.

Even better still, look for hand-me-downs: be on the lookout for old 15″ CRT monitors from work (hint: they’ll be in the pile about to go to the recycler!). 

How do you do make it happen?

The only gotcha: your computer has to support a second monitor. Sure, it’s a large caveat, but with the cost of technology, you’ll be pleasantly surprised that a majority of computers already have a second video card/monitor port built in.

For PC laptops

You’ll no doubt have an external monitor connection – this is ostensibly used for connecting your laptop to a projector for making million dollar sales pitches. The basic name for this setup is ‘mirror mode’: what you see on your laptop screen is exactly what they see on the projector. But you can/should/hopefully will be able to either a) press a button on your laptop (look at the function keys), or b) change a setting within your Control Panels, to enable the external connection to be in ‘dual’ mode – that is, with both screens acting as a huge single screen.

For PC Desktops

Unless you bought the cheapest of the cheap computer (where the graphics card is hard-soldered to the computer motherboard) then your computer monitor plugs into a video card on the back of your main box. Now, fingers crossed, but more and more of even the base level video cards are dual monitor capable. You’ll be able to instantly tell if there are *two* monitor connections, right? You’ll probably then need to play with your Monitors control panel, or do a right-click on your Desktop, and choose properties…

For Macs (Desktop and Laptop):

Pretty much every Mac in the past 5 years has had dual-display support, and a good proportion of the Macs prior to that. Give it a go!

If all else fails:

There are small gadgets that let you plug in a second (or third!) monitor to any free USB port – they typically cost less than $100. And for PC desktop users, you can pick up an adequate video card with two ports for less that $100. Indeed, you may only need a video card with *one* output, since you can still use your hard-soldered video card as the second screen.

OK – then what do you do with it?

So you’re up and running – I’ve convinced you that for a very small investment, you’ll be more efficient and able to run faster, stronger, etc etc – good!

Place your second screen either to the left or right of your main scree, and try to get them in the same ‘depth’ from your eyes – you don’t want to be focussing and refocussing all day long.

Then go into your Monitors setup (either in Control Panels for PCs, or in System Preferences for Macs) and ‘lay out’ your two screens. Arrange your screens to be the same arrangement as your physical setup. You can then move your mouse off the side of one screen, right onto the other – as if they were the one wide screen.

My best suggestion is to drag all your non-profit-making/communications-type programs onto your second screen: your Instant Messaging windows, Skype – as well as your most often used files and folders. Keep your main screen for working on your ‘main’ programs: email, document editing/creation, photographic work. In that way, you can glance over to your second monitor to grab a file, or respond to a client/colleague, or be able to monitor events (in the true sense of the word ‘monitor’).

If you’re able to, hop online at rebusiness.com.au and leave comments about your experiences with using a second (or third) monitor at work/home/wherever. Go on – lets’ start a mini revolution! [Insert evil laugh here]

AB out