Over the past few months, I’ve been using a dual-monitor setup on a couple of my PCs. Using the one that’s front-and-center as the main screen and placing one to the right of it is the setup I like. The one on the right is the great addition. I use it as a control panel mainly and as a secondary work pane. What does that mean? I have some Google tools (scratch pad, to do list, small calendar) and my instant messaging window always open on the right screen. I also use it for my Palm calendar. It’s exceptionally useful for when I need to reference the content of two different windows frequently. For instance, while learning Swish (a Flash programming application), I had the tutorial on the right monitor and Swish on the main monitor. Two monitors made it so much easier and faster to learn that I was hooked. That’s when I decided to set up my other main system with them.

Now that I’ve been using them for awhile, I am passionate about telling of my experiences with them to people who use their PC a lot. I just set up a new PC for a client and she loves the productivity boost from using dual monitors. Adding a second monitor to a system is super simple and not cost-prohibitive. LCD monitors can be acquired for as little as $150. An extra video card is as little as $50. That’s all you need for a dual-monitor setup on a Windows XP PC.

One tool I like in use with dual monitors is UltraMon. It makes managing the display settings of a dual-monitor system very easy and adds useful functions. The one I use the most is a button added to the minimize/maximize/close buttons in the top right of most windows. It’s a “move window” button that just pops the window over to the other monitor. Super simple, but very convenient. Realtime Soft offers UltraMon as a fully functional trial application and sells it for $40. The price is a little high, but I think you may find you like it enough to buy it.

When you’re ready to graduate from dual monitors to something just a little bigger and better, why not go for this puppy?!