How to work with multi-screen setup,what is it useful for?

"Both me and my wife have Dual 20"" LCD Monitors at home.

I use mine for development. Visual Studio open on one, SQL Management Studio, web browsers and mail on the other. My wife does Poser 3D graphics and Poser loves dual screens, which makes a huge difference when doing any type of graphics work. Therefore she can have her tools open on one screen and her workspace open on another.

At work I have 4 screens across 2 computers. Every application I use can be opened on it's own screen, and when doing research it can be extremely useful not to tab or click between open applications.

Using it is simple. Drag the application you want on any of the other monitors to the monitor and leave it there. A lot of applications these days remember which monitor they were opened on from the start. Right now I have my mail and remote desktop on one screen and my browser on another to easily keep track of both."

"If you want to go super-hardcore, try flipping one of your monitors 90o - vertical style!

I operate like this at work. The programs I use value vertical real estate more than horizontal, so by having a 1680x1050 screen that's actually 1050x1680 I can get a lot more work done (and, for the record, an A4 document at 100% zoom in Word is the exact dimensions of the paper in real life).

You need a video card that supports rotating the monitor (most do), and it's increased by productivity to no end."

"That's up to you.

I use it so I can have multiple documents open at once - an email and a webpage, or a tutorial and the application I'm going through it in, some applications have break-away interfaces allowing you to put controls on one screen, and the document on the other.

If nothing else, you look 20% cooler with each monitor you hook up."

"I went dual it because it's not cramped. When doing photography and graphic design work, I keep Bridge open on the right monitor and Indesign or Photoshop on the left. Parallels runs on the right monitor, as does e-mail. Basically, my main task is on the left, the secondary on the right. Saves lots of switching back and forth.

There comes a size of monitor when mouse-tracking becomes to slow to have multiple monitors. I used a friends dual 30"" Mac and it was just ridiculous. I think the sweet spot is dual 23"", but that's me. It's comes down to what you're comfortable with.

But the benefit is less time scrolling in documents and swapping windows to the foreground. And getting a bigger picture view at a glance. Oh yeah, that and impressing less technically savvy folk."

"You willl be surprised how much use you will get out of a dual monitor setup.

I use mine for running different browser windows or media on different desktops, when idling, or using any one application, eg. Blender or Photoshop on my larger one and having various browser windows, folders and other references open on the other when ostensibly working. That's it really.

The more screen acreage you have, the more ways you'll find to fill it!"