Having multiple monitors attached to my PC is cool

[A Black Falcon]

(Adapted from chat)

I have two monitors hooked up to my computer now...
it's pretty cool. Now I can have twice as many web browser tabs open easily... It is pretty handy though all around. I don't want to go back to one screen. :)

I do wish a few things though...

-You should be able to display different wallpaper on each screen (that'd be a cool feature)
-Why can't you access the taskbar from other screens, it can only be in one place
-Also the computer remembers which window programs were in so when you open them again they return to the same screen... often useful, sometimes annoying.

Oh, and I have one game where you can move the mouse over to the other screen, but if you click it of course task-switches out of the fullscreen game... and you can't get back, it crashes. Most games properly capture the mouse onto only one screen though, so the other one is displaying whatever but you can't interact with it.

Still though, it's pretty cool. Being able to have something open in one window that I want to look at sometimes while I mostly use the other one, reduces clutter or hidden windows quite a bit. I put Winamp, or downloads, or whatever on the other screen so instead of just being in the background I can see them. And as I said, being able to have web browser windows open on both screens lets me use more tabs easily. If they're both the same browser (two Seamonkey windows, that is) you don't even have to click on each one to activate them, both are active simultaneously so just move the mouse over to the other one and you can scroll in that window or something. If it's Seamonkey in one and Firefox in the other though or something you do have to click, of course.

Also, it reminded me once again that CRTs are better than LCDs. One of the screens is an LCD and the colors aren't nearly as good. That's why it's the secondary, not the primary. The CRTs one downside is size, and the resulting limited maximum screen size too, but the picture is better, the LCD looks bad in comparison... the colors are just not right. Everything looks dull and flat, the vibrancy of the color is gone, and the colors are less accurate too.

I admit that it's not a new LCD and newer ones are likely better, but based on this one, that's how it is. My crt is a 17" Dell CRT monitor from late 2001, while the LCD is a mid '00s Dell 17" (normal, not widescreen, VGA connector, not DVI). Their screens may be the same size, but the CRT has more resolution options, higher refresh rates, and better colors. The LCD only wins on thinness and maximum brightness, and that latter one really is not an advantage -- by default the screen is far too bright. You can mess with the colors, sure, but it's really just a brightness setting for the whole screen. Turn it down and everything gets darker. At least you can do that, but that does nothing to fix the not very good colors, it just makes it a little less glaringly bright (at the cost of that new brightness being the new max).

etoven said something about "glossy finish" LCD screens being better. I don't really know much about different kinds of LCD tech.

Also, as I said, this lcd also supports fewer resolutions and frequencies than the crt. Though I admit I don't have its actual drivers installed, the computer just recognizes the LCD as 'generic monitor' while it correctly identifies the CRT as an Dell m781s. With the drivers they have though the lcd has max res 1280x1024, max 75hz frequency, while the crt can do 1600x1200, hz max depends on resolution -- 60hz only at 1600x1200, but 100hz at the 1024x768 that I run my desktop. So the CRT's 100hz while the LCD is 75.