Does it help?
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Does it help?Years ago I used to work for an import company and we dealt with all types of distributors and wholesalers for the products we brought in from overseas. One of our divisions dealt with metal products, mostly door hinges, from China and we had workers whose job it was to arrange for inventory from various warehouses to be shipped to fulfill orders.
At the time, circa 1996, we were pretty high tech. We mostly dealt with faxes and phone orders at the time, phone orders being the easiest because the workers would just enter an order and match it up with inventory from the closest warehouse. Faxes were more challenging, but we had a high tech fax server that caught every fax coming into our company and saved it to an imaging system.
When I got there, Windows had just been deployed, so workers would pull up an image on the screen, look at it, and then alt-tab to the order entry system and enter some information, alt-tab back to read, alt-tab back, etc. They could also make notations on the image, and would do so with an order number, ship date, etc. and save the image back to our high tech, SQL Server 4.2-based, image server.
We were looking to rewrite the order entry system when I got there and as we did so, we spent a lot of time with the workers trying to figure out how to speed the process up for them and make their job easier, and get them to process more orders per day.
Recently a study said that one 30inch monitor would increase productivity, though some people disagreed. The alternative presented was two 19" inch monitors instead. The type of work you do probably has some impact on which is more productive, but I know that either of these is better than a single 17" monitor.
This brings me back to my little tale because I actually tested this a decade ago. At the time most people had 14" or 15" monitors on their desks, each of which could cost $300 or so. I proposed moving to two monitors for the workers that needed to see two applications at the same time and got permission to buy an extra 15" monitor and a fancy $500 video card with two VGA outputs. I also got permission to spend $800 on a single 20" monitor and we spent a few months swapping the setups among all the workers and even a few others to see what they thought. The result?
Two monitors hands down.
As much as I'd like to have a monitor the size of my desk, like on The Island or Minority Report, I know it's not as productive as multiple monitors. You just spend too much time moving things around, resizing, etc. to make them fit your current task. You might work with Outlook and Query Analyzer now, but then need Excel and Outlook, or Word and Query Analyzer, or Outlook and Word, and all the sizes and locations you set don't always work.
You'll still resize and move applications with multiple monitors, but there's another key. You can full screen an app on multiple monitors and it will stick to just that screen. So even if you have to drag something from one to the other quickly, you can maximize it and cover everything else up. I use that a lot and it's helpful.
If you've never tried it, get a $30 video card and borrow another monitor. You won't go back. I have a 19" LCD and a 20" CRT on my desk and love it. Unless I was some type of artist, I'm not sure I'd go to one monitor, even a 42" wide one.
So what do you think for the Friday poll? Do information workers, or more importantly, DBAs do better with a large monitor?
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Hi,
I would definitely agree that 2 monitors are better than one. I use a large screen laptop and an LCD monitor at work. I find it very useful when I am writing a stored procedure and need to check out the data type of a field or some other object in the database. In this case I use Enterprise Manager on one screen and Query Analyzer on the other. I also develop ASP.NET apps, so then I have Visual Studio on one screen and Enterprise Manager on the other and all the information I want is available with a slight head turn.
My company is very good about providing dual monitors because they know that we are more productive than if we had just one.
Cheers,
Nicole
Nicole Bowman
Nothing is forever.
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Back in the 80's I worked for a bank & everyone on the Forex desk wanted a nice 21" monitor (They'd seen one of the directors with one). So I also set up an experiment for them where they spent 1 day with the 21" CRT and then 1 day with the 2 17" Flat screens.
Outcome - It was the Director who converted
At the moment I'm working with one 17" Flatscreen and boy is is anoying.
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Two monitors is definitely the way to go. I just changed over about four months ago and it certainly has made a major difference.
I do a lot of work in Access against SQL server and that really hums. You can either have a SQL screen and an Access screen or an Access form screen and a code screen or an enterprise manager screen and a query analyser screen.
The only problem is some apps "lose" some of their child windows or pop ups. In access, I find the sorting and grouping window sometimes goes walkabout and you have to swith screens to find it. Same thing applies to the find/replace pop-up. I listen to a lot of internet radio and every so often the big volume control goes off the screen and the only to bring it back is to run a reg fragment.
I think dual monitors are the way to go the only problem is that the software can't always cope as you move screens.
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Two monitors - anytime.
I've spent most of this year changing the visual style of our .net application using two 19" TFTs. Debugging painting code is so much easier when you've got two monitors, you are not constantly bringing the IDE/application to the front and therefore firing extra paint messages. Now I want three - of those lovely large Apple TFTs. Is that greedy?
Two monitors - the minimum for every developer!
There is no problem so great that it can not be solved by caffeine and chocolate. -
I definately agree with 2 monitors rather than one.
I use 2x19's at work and I've got a single 32in at home. I prefer the 2x19's anyday.
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I use two monitors at work, did in the previous job as well. They are both CRT's, I keep asking every once in a while for LCD's just so I can reclaim some of my desk space!
When my machine went caput a couple of months ago I got a new pc (nothing special - bargain basement), the only prob was that there was an oversight by the person who ordered it - it only took half size pci video cards so all of the full size cards we had knocking around were useless. I had to work with a single 17 inch monitor for a few days and HATED EVERY SECOND OF IT!
Fullscreening windows on several monitors is a lot easier than messing around tiling windows to fit. I would actually prefer using three as I am still running out of space or is that me being greedy?
I've had two computers and three CRT monitors on my desk before and it was a bit daunting but great for testing purposes.Once I walked past a place that each desk had six lcds
... wander if they ever had to resize anything?! -
3 is better than 2!
I use 3x19" monitors at work. The ability to read multiple program code across multiple screens makes software development much easier than just using one monitor. My productivity has increased tremendously.
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I agree with Frank Carrelli . I have used multiple monitors for a few years now. I also use a program called Multimon. I can move windows from screen to screen with a mouse click. It is a real time saver to be able to work in visual studio, sql server, and remote descktop to servers all at the same time. I can almost make the case for four monitors. OS vendors should build support for this feature.
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Why are we even asking this question? The only people who don't like two monitors are the people who haven't used two monitors. I imagine that there are some very specialized people who need a 30" or 42" monitor, just never met them. Let me reiterate, I imagine.
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My setup is slightly different from those I see here so I'll post it...
I work mostly at the office but occasionally I work from home or travel to a client so my laptop/workstation is an Acer Ferrari 4000 with an AMD Turion64 bit processor, 100 GB hard drive, 2 GB ram and a 15.4" screen running at 1280X1024 (1680X1050 max but that is to fine for me). At the office I use the Acer ezDock docking station with a Targus cooling pad under my laptop. I mention the cooling pad because I believe it really helps keep this puppy cool. Without it the air coming out feels very toasty. In my home office I use a second Targus cooling pad as well.
Along with this I use an external 500 GB hard disk connected through a firewire 400 interface for my Virtual PC storage.
For video at the office I use the laptop screen and two 17" monitors. All three screens run at 1280X1024. To do this you have to use an additional video card/box. Mine is made by Matrox and cost about 140.00 at Buy.com. Your can read about it on http://www.matrox.com/graphics/offhome/dh2go/home.cfm
The Matrox unit works great. Easy to setup and use... When I'm home working I really miss the extra screen space!
A final note... I have my laptop setting on a thick book and the Targus cooling pad to make the three screens heights even across my desk. And finally, I had dual screens, the laptop 15.4 and one 17" monitor before, and the three screen setup is definitely worth the extra expense. FYI, the company supplies my laptop and the two 17" screens. All my other "stuff" was purchased with my own money so I really do believe in my extra goodies.
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Heck yeah! I feel pinned down if I have less than 2 ...my office computer has 2, my studio 3, one of my offices on location 2, and everywhere else 1. I have three places I like to work best ...guess which they are
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Yes, for advanced users they do. Not for the "hunt-and-peck" developers out there. It's all about how well you can process information. I agree with the multi-monitor point of view, even if your secondary monitor is just a tiny old monitor, separating things like your email/iTunes/winAmp/IM/whatever outside of your direct field of view keeps you more focused on the task at hand.
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I agree that 2 is better, however I don't have the room for 2 monitors so I upgraded to a 20.1" at 1600x1200. This works great for me and since I must be one of the few people that don't care for full size windows on everything it works well.
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