Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

Re:Time to Upgrade Your Monitor by gnicholas on Wednesday June 17, 2020 @01:04PM (#23553788)

> I compare it to having a large, wide desk when you’re working on something. Who wouldn’t want that?

I have used between 1-3 monitors over the last decade, and there sure are advantages to having 3 for certain tasks. However, I noticed that having multiple monitors resulted in me having a dedicated screen for email (usually the smallest, my laptop screen). This decreased my productivity.

Perhaps not everyone has this weak spot, but for me using multiple monitors has a downside from an attention/focus perspective.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Time to Upgrade Your Monitor by markrages on Wednesday June 17, 2020 @01:27PM (#23554099)

Coronavirus has robbed me of one of my favorite productivity hacks, which is coding on old Thinkpad with 4:3 ratio display, at a coffeeshop or library with Internet turned off. No distractions, no multitasking, just pure focus on a problem.

I miss it.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Time to Upgrade Your Monitor by glouwbug on Wednesday June 17, 2020 @07:47PM (#23558201)

My friend, when I moved into my new apartment I went without WiFi for 2 years and did nothing but code on my T43. In that time I managed to rewrite (a variant of) Age of Empires 2.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Time to Upgrade Your Monitor by clarry on Thursday June 18, 2020 @07:39AM (#23562096)

> (a variant of) Age of Empires 2.

What's this?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Time to Upgrade Your Monitor by glouwbug on Thursday June 18, 2020 @12:45PM (#23564923)

https://github.com/glouw/openempires

I chip away at it now every other night. It's namely a simple multiplayer client. Britons is the only civ.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Time to Upgrade Your Monitor by alexktz on Thursday June 18, 2020 @08:02AM (#23562245)

My home internet went out yesterday (I WFH full-time).

“No big deal”, I thought. I’ll just go to Sta... Dammit COVID!

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Time to Upgrade Your Monitor by platz on Wednesday June 17, 2020 @01:39PM (#23554262)

Which old thinkpad?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Time to Upgrade Your Monitor by phaus on Wednesday June 17, 2020 @03:13PM (#23555480)

With a 4:3 ratio, probably a T60 or a T61.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Time to Upgrade Your Monitor by markrages on Wednesday June 17, 2020 @04:11PM (#23556132)

Right on. T61, with one of the best thinkpad keyboards ever.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Time to Upgrade Your Monitor by flanker on Wednesday June 17, 2020 @09:34PM (#23558866)

Those keypads, you could throw anything to them and they would still give you that travel, click and satisfaction.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Time to Upgrade Your Monitor by bluescrn on Wednesday June 17, 2020 @06:52PM (#23557772)

IMHO, two monitors is an amazing upgrade. One screen for code, another for reference material or for the app being debugged. Better than one huge screen in many cases, as it’s two 16:10 spaces that you can maximize things to.

But with a 3rd monitor, you’re well into diminishing returns, it may even end up being a distraction if it becomes a Slack/Mail/web screen.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Time to Upgrade Your Monitor by Polylactic_acid on Wednesday June 17, 2020 @07:14PM (#23557970)

I think most of the need for more monitors can be solved with a tiling window manager.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Time to Upgrade Your Monitor by vzidex on Wednesday June 17, 2020 @02:35PM (#23554983)

> I noticed that having multiple monitors resulted in me having a dedicated screen for email (usually the smallest, my laptop screen)

I'm currently using two external monitors, with my laptop docked and closed. I find the "dedicated screen for <distraction>" was a problem for me when I had my laptop screen open, because it's a different size/resolution/position than my actual monitors. On the other hand, I never have that problem with my dedicated monitors - in my mind they're a part of the same "workspace" because they're the same size, resolution, and positioned together - so I could see myself going to 3 desktop monitors one day.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Time to Upgrade Your Monitor by smichel17 on Wednesday June 17, 2020 @01:42PM (#23554305)

I have two monitors right now and wish I had a third. One for code, one for documentation, and one for running whatever I'm working on (website, android emulator, etc). Currently I have the code monitor vertical and swap between workspaces on the horizontal monitor for the running thing and documentation.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Time to Upgrade Your Monitor by nicoburns on Wednesday June 17, 2020 @01:14PM (#23553915)

I've solved this problem by having my email client (actually it's Slack in my case, but the same principle) and terminal share a screen. This works pretty well because I rarely want to use my terminal and chat at the same time.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Time to Upgrade Your Monitor by jcastro on Wednesday June 17, 2020 @02:29PM (#23554904)

When I need to concentrate I just turn off my two side ones and focus on the middle one.

[ Parent | on HN ]