Two Heads are Better Than One

If you have seen the movie "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" then you may recall one of the songs by Power Tool that declares "Two Heads are Better Than One." In computer lingo "Two Heads" refers to having two monitors on the same computer. Anyone who has plugged a projector or second monitor into a laptop knows that you have option of having the same (mirror) or different (dual heads) information on each screen. When running with dual heads it is nice to have that extra screen real estate.

When I got my first laptop, the display was only 640x480 pixels. The screen was usable while on an airplane but I was always eager to get to the office or back home where I had a larger monitor waiting. I never really used the dual head option because the laptop screen was just too small. It was like those worthless forarms on a T-rex.

Now technology has evolved to the point where laptop monitors can have resolutions greater than 1280x1024 pixels. My MacBook that I use for my laptop has a screen resolution of 1280x800 pixels. That is about the same as my previous desktop. There is no need to plug in a separate monitor to make the laptop usable. However a second monitor is nice to have when one is available.

When it came time to replace my desktop computer a few months ago, I decided that I wanted one that would support dual monitors. My personal brand recommendation for desktop PCs is Dell. They seem to be of sufficient quality and are reasonably priced. I went on their website and saw that some of their computers come with two monitor ports. That means you don't have to add a second video card (more money and complexity) to support dual heads. I priced out a machine with all of the options I wanted and wrote the information down. Then I went to the local Best Buy to see if they had one in-stock so I could look at it.

There is something to be said for retail locations where you can physically handle the merchandise before buying it. Unfortunately they didn't have the computer I had built on the Internet. They actually had a better model at a lower price. One problem with building your own machine is your knowledge is outdated. I know a lot about computers but I wasn't keeping up with the latest processors and options. Intel had come out with a new Processor that was faster and was in the latest Dell computer at Best Buy. It was on sale too. Since I was at Best Buy, I wasn't stuck with buying Dell Monitors which saved me even more money. In the end I saved myself about $400 between the computer and two monitors. The store also made sure I had all the cables I needed to connect everything (the extra monitor cables ended up being free).

Dell would have taken several weeks to build the computer and ship it to me. With Best Buy I had the computer immediately and was able to bring it home.

The first order of business was cleaning off my desk. It was set up for one 17-inch LCD display. My new computer has two 23-inch displays and I needed to make room for them. It also took some work positioning them so I could use the computer but still be able to have room for my laptop and be able to watch TV at the same time. It took some rearranging but I was able to make it work.

Once the hardware was set up, it was time to get the software working. I booted the machine into Windows and got Vista going without any trouble. I shut down the machine, rebooted with a disk partitioning CD, and moved things around on the hard drive so I could make room for Linux. Then I loaded up Linux and configured it to recognize the second monitor as a separate display. By default Linux thinks the second monitor is a mirror of the first. It is an easy configuration change.

Now I have two monitors on my primary desktop computer and it is a huge improvement over my old system. I can keep my e-mail open on one monitor and then do all my work in the other. When a new e-mail arrives, I simply drag my mouse and the cursor jumps from the right edge of one monitor to the left edge of the other. Now I just need to stop trying to use my desktop mouse on my laptop screen because that doesn't work.