
Running 30" and 20" monitors side-by-side using a Macbook Pro - andrewljohnson
http://www.andrewljohnson.com/article/Adding%20a%20Third%20Monitor%20with%20DisplayLink%20USB%20to%20DVI
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ktharavaad
I'm jealous of that awesome setup with a 30 inch monitor. I'm even more
jealous that he has his girlfriend as his co-founder. Its extremely hard to
meet pleasant, smart as well as entrepreneur-minded females in this line of
work.

~~~
herval
it's also very dangerous to mix up businesses with family. If one go wrong,
chances are the other will burn too...

~~~
andrewljohnson
Tell that to the husband/wife team behind Flickr (and now Hunch).

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rbanffy
Cisco, IIRC

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cpr
Except that Len and Sandi did get divorced...

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rbanffy
But they divorced after they left the company. And the company survived.

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zcrar70
Their relationship was sunk, but the company survived - that's the important
things taken care of at least!

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noonespecial
I've got one and find it only slightly faster than a close vnc session. A
better option for me was to dig up and old computer and use osx2vnc to send
just key and mouse to the other screen. This way, you get the power of a whole
computer behind your second screen.

~~~
smokey_the_bear
I used to do the same thing with an old mac mini and synergy. But I couldn't
quite get the synergy auto restart working consistently after the mini slept.
Plus I missed not being able to move windows between the screens.

~~~
jodrellblank
If you do use this approach of having a second computer running, then on
Windows you can use MaxiVista and it will use the second computer as a real
second monitor in a similar way this USB adapter does.

i.e. MaxiVista installs a virtual video card and monitor, take whatever is
supposed to be displayed on it, ships over the network and displays it on the
other computer. You can drag windows over to it as you'd expect and generally
use it as any other extra monitor, but it is more sluggish than a real video
card.

There was a MaxiVista Mac beta around at one point, I don't know if it turned
into a real product, but <http://www.screenrecycler.com/home.html> seems to do
the same thing.

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jrockway
Do people really want to be distracted by a constantly-visible browser window?
I find virtual desktops to be much easier than managing multiple monitors. It
also gives me more real desk space for notes and coffee cups :)

~~~
tow21
No, but I'd like to not be distracted by switching back and forth between
virtual desktops if I can instead see at the same time all 6 Emacs windows &
10 terminals holding various aspects of my debugging state.

(and I only need one coffee cup at a time. Keep your refills within arms
length!)

~~~
jrockway
The need for 10 terminals means you are probably not using emacs to its
fullest. ;)

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avinashv
I'm not familiar with the display adapters on a Macbook, but my 2008-gen 13"
Macbook connects to an external monitor fine. Could I use a splitter, like he
states, and connect it to two 24"? That would be pretty awesome.

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jwt
anyone have particular splitter recs?

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jodrellblank
"it is possible to achieve graphics acceleration using an ExpressCard slot.
Using a PCI Express expansion chassis, a standard PCI Express graphics
accelerator card can be utilized to allow game-level 3D graphics (to an
external monitor). [..] Graphics upgrade/expansion (to an external monitor) is
also available through the ExpressCard slot via Docking Stations."

\- <http://www.expresscard.org/web/site/qa.jsp#19>

Which would probably provide much better performance, although at a higher
cost.

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brk
I've been doing the same thing for a while, but with dual 23's. My adapter is
an IOGear USB 2.0 DVI adapter. I seem to recall I had to download the OSX
drivers from their website, but other than that it works very well.

Note the iMovie will not run if it detects one of these adapters though.

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antidaily
Wow, at $99, this is something I'll have to consider. The options I looked at
last year when I bought my MBP were considerably more expensive.

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smokey_the_bear
I got the gefen, which is slightly cheaper from amazon. All of the converters
seem to use the same displaylink technology, so reviews say they work the
same, but price varies from about 80-160. There are some crazy ones for the
MBP that can drive a 30 inch monitor and have an external gpu, but it was 500
and reportedly quite loud.

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andrewljohnson
Thanks again Smokey ;)

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cmer
I have a software-based solution for this, but I think I'll definitely look
into a USB to DVI adapter now...

[http://blog.carlmercier.com/2009/02/16/a-dream-setup-
three-m...](http://blog.carlmercier.com/2009/02/16/a-dream-setup-three-
monitors-on-a-macbook/)

~~~
arupchak
I ended up replicating your setup after reading your blog post. I am still
impressed with the performance of the 'extra' monitor even when using it over
ssh.

I emailed the developer of ScreenRecycler with praise after I bought it and he
sadly replied that not enough people buy the product and that he wishes he
could spend more dev time on it.

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jodrellblank
I thought "people buying it" and "spending time improving it" happened the
other way round...

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jodrellblank
I run three monitors at home and work.

At some point (in the future!) I will have to face the fact that many people
accomplished much more with fewer screens, less processing power, more basic
software...

Hrm. I don't like that idea much.

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st3fan
Too bad the guy can't properly scale his photos.

~~~
seiji
The image isn't screwed up, just the in page scaling:
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/33766454@N02/3638277193/sizes/l...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/33766454@N02/3638277193/sizes/l/)

It's nice how the 20" width lines up with the 30" height.

~~~
amvp
That is very nice, and I think two modest (17' or 19') widecreen monitors,
rotated to portrait, would be good for coding. But it's my understanding that
sub-pixel smoothing only works when the monitors are landscape. Is there a fix
for that? Or is the best way just to switch it off?

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tdavis
Now he should invest in some screen cleaner. _My God_.

~~~
andrewljohnson
After I posted the link, I noticed how dirty my screens were and cleaned them
:)

