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HN Members' Workspaces

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Re: HN Members' Workspaces

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no comparison between multiple desktops and multiple monitors, IMO. A 30" monitor is smaller than 2x 24" monitors (close to what I use, 24" and 22").

I have two 24" monitors at work and one at home. At work, I use XP. At home I use Linux/Xmonad. Xmonad on one monitor is vastly preferable to Windows on two monitors. Even a 9" monitor is good enough with Xmonad. Maybe you need two monitors if you are not an Xmonad/keyboard power user... but otherwise, two monitors just gets you extra neck strain.

I already have a system for arranging windows, but it's not based on tiling. My secondary monitor is for cascaded windows, such that the bottom-left corner of every window is aligned along a diagonal line. This makes window switching a spatial experience. As to keyboard power user, I generally exclusively use the keyboard when I'm using an IDE, terminal, email, Google reader, etc., but use mouse for documentation, web browsing, etc.

Two monitors comes into its own when you need to see more information on the screen at once. In my IDE as it is, when e.g. debugging, I have loads of tiled information displays, between the source, disassembly, CPU and FPU registers, CPU stack, memory, symbolic call stack, watches, locals, loaded modules, breakpoint list, thread list, log, project layout, etc. Fitting all that into 9" would be unreasonable; add in the actual running program in a terminal window, and scanning logs of previous runs in less, and it's hard to get by without two screens.

Re: HN Members' Workspaces

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is indeed!

Does it only work for your terminal windows or can you tile any window? Any details on how you set it up, I can't seem to find a lot of info about it.

You won't be able to use xmonad to manage normal OS X apps. X11 will just be another OS X application sitting in your dock that you can switch to. However, it is pretty easy to install a decent set of X11 apps. If you have MacPorts installed you can install the packages firefox-x11, rxvt-unicode, unclutter, and 'vim +gtk2' (the +gtk2 variant for PRIMARY/CLIPBOARD support) to get started.

http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Xmonad/Using_xmonad_on_Ap...

Re: HN Members' Workspaces

#159
post #108
post #84

Pic: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/102228/desktop.jpg Had to switch back to Windows 7 after Ubuntu 10.4 decided it no longer wants to work with my video cards. I guess that's what I get for buying new hardware. * Monitors: 30" Dell, 21" Samsung and a 20.1" Dell vertical * Keyboard: Kinesis Advantage Pro * Chair: Herman Miller Embody Not featured is the Dell Latitude e4300, which was the perfect buy for mobile productivity.…

How do you like the Embody?

Highly adjustable. Shifts pressure away from your spine which makes long workdays a lot more bearable. I owned the Aeron before, I like the Embody better. If you have the money, I would recommend it. I bought mine new through eBay.

Re: HN Members' Workspaces

#160
post #87
post #84

Pic: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/102228/desktop.jpg Had to switch back to Windows 7 after Ubuntu 10.4 decided it no longer wants to work with my video cards. I guess that's what I get for buying new hardware. * Monitors: 30" Dell, 21" Samsung and a 20.1" Dell vertical * Keyboard: Kinesis Advantage Pro * Chair: Herman Miller Embody Not featured is the Dell Latitude e4300, which was the perfect buy for mobile productivity.…

Very nice monitor setup. The 30" Dells are wonderful.

Absolutely. One large monitor easily beats multiple smaller ones.
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