I have been thinking about doing the flat panel, multi-monitor thing for a long time now. Many of my geek friends have done this and are always raving about how nice it is to have so much screen real estate.
This is my idea of a perfect monitor - from L (which some think is a hoax!)
Another one I have been drooling over for a while is the sleek SONY, also a little pricey for me. My sister and I just bought the VGA version of this for my parents and it made me want one even more!
So I gave in and finally, today, after quite a bit of “how to pull it off“ research, bought two Dell 19“ Flat panel monitors - 1905FP.
I'm not keen on the stands, but they will quickly be buried under papers anyway.
I decided to go digital, which also meant purchasing a new graphics card for my computer that will allow me to plug in the two digital monitors to one card. I ended up deciding on AGP (a newer type of card, like PCI, but zippier and favored by gamers - which I am not) that uses the NVidia GeForce 6600 technology. (Don't I sound like I know what the heck I'm talking about?)
It's amazing how much time it takes to figure this stuff out. I had no idea how to plug them into my computer and it took a lot of digging and a phone call to finally get that part right. Then there was the DVI vs VGA to decide on and one board or two and lastly PCI or AGP (I first had to learn what AGP was!). Oh, and I was being frugal and having a hard time even choosing between 17” and 19”.
Since I work for myself, my friends all like to point out the tax write-off, as if it were free - those silly friends.
But when all is said and done and I am able to spread out the many windows I have open on my screen all day, and perhaps even talk myself into keeping my VGA monitor off to the side for email - I will be pretty happy!
Many thanks to a particular group of geeky guys on a particular listserv who patiently helped me out!