How to efficiently work with Multiple Monitors

 

Recent studies revealed that multiple monitor configurations can increase the user productivity and efficiency. Traditionally used in graphic or financial industry as it became more affordable, multi-monitor computing is starting to be very popular in a lot of domains.

Users are given the ability to access more information simultaneously, a more efficient multi-tasking between applications resolving the need to view and process a multitude of information sources at a time – all this can positively impact productivity and morale of the users, making them feel more comfortable and more focused on tasks.

What about the pleasure and convenience of working
with multiple monitors?

In this post I have decided to present some tools that I currently use in parallel with the multi-monitors.

I usually work on my 17’ laptop and my secondary screen is a 24’ screen. The difference between the two screens is big, and adapting from one screen to another can be painful for the eyes.

I had to find a way to split the big screen but not the smaller one. There are a number of applications on the internet serving the purpose of splitting the screen and after testing a number of them, there was one in particular that I considered adapted to my needs and also free: Acer GridVista .
It allows you to allocate the space on each of your monitors and split the workspace in up to 4 sections per screen.

Compared to other tools I found, it had the advantage of allowing the user to choose the grid configuration on each monitor independently, in my case, I chose to split the bigger screen in 4, and deactivate the grid on the smaller one.

Choosing in which section you would like to move the current application is simple. After you defined the grid configuration, just drag and drop the desired application on the grid of the desired screen.

There were a number of things I was not happy about, such as the fact that when you click on the Show Desktop button to minimize all windows, and then you re-click on the same button to restore them, they are not correctly restored as before in grids but in random positions on the screen. So you are forced to reorganize them manually in the defined grids.

The fix for this and also for the fact that there is no simple way to extend the start bar to both screens, was in my case another application – Actual Multiple Monitors .
It comes with a big number of nice features but it is not free, it costs around 30$.

There are also other alternatives to this software such as MultiMon Taskbar which comes in different flavors (TaskBar which is free, and TaskBar Pro) but for me it had some compatibility problems with Windows 7.

A quick-tip for a small visual issue I encountered:
When Acer GridVista is running, it adds to the title bar of each window 3 buttons, allowing setting the transparency, the always on top option and whether the window should be locked to the grid or not. By installing and executing Actual Multiple Monitors, a set of 2 buttons are also added by default to the window’s toolbar (move to monitor, and maximize to desktop, which I personally don’t find useful), that can be disabled from the Configuration menu -> Default settings -> Title Buttons, to prevent the superposition with the previous set of buttons.

Adrian

Run any applications safely on your computer

At one point, by curiosity or necessity, you need to execute a certain application you downloaded from the internet or received from a friend. Even with the presence of an antivirus on you computer, there is always the risk - the application doing something unwanted on your computer like altering a number of files or parts of registry.

The best way to protect your computer from a risk like this would be to be able to run the desired application in a virtual controlled environment that gives full access to the files on your computer but keeps changes separately, keeping the original files untouched.

Sandboxie is exactly the application you would need to do this.

The application is freeware, with the only exception that after 30 days it starts displaying a nag screen to remind you of registering it.

Browsing internet in a sandbox is also possible, you can do this by executing the preferred browser inside the sandbox, and once finish it is enough to close the browser and empty the sandbox.

To enumerate some of the functionalities of Sandboxie: install programs sandboxed, run windows services sandboxes, shell integration – right click on an executable –> Run in sandbox, protection at some extent against keyloggers.

Adrian

How will you look in 40 years

If you ever wondered how will you look over 40 year, there is a cool site that can simulate aging and a few other transformations of your face.

All you have to do is upload your photo (or your friend’s), choose the age, gender.

This tool called The Face Transformer, is accesible at this address: The Face Transformer

Have fun morphing!

Adrian

How to force delete files in Windows 7 & Vista

Have you ever wanted to delete files from a previous windows installation, but you couldn’t because of a permission error.

Most of the times, it is purely a problem of ownership over the files you wish to delete. If you are the administrator of the computer, than there is a quick solution of taking the ownership of the files, adding the Take Ownership in your right click context menu.

How to add this option in the context menu.
You have to download this file: InstallRemoveTakeOwnership.zip

Once you did this, extract the contents in a folder. There are two registry files insinde, one that adds the Take Ownership context menu option, the other that removes it.

Double click InstallTakeOwnershipOption.reg

Now right click the folder you want to delete, then select Take Ownership.

Once the operation is completed, you have the full ownership of the folder, and you can go further deleting the file.

To remove this option from the context menu, just click on the other registry file RemoveTakeOwnershipOption.reg

What if I still cannot delete the file

If the problem still persists, then it is not related just to permissions. We could be talking about a file blocked by the system, a damaged file…

If you are sure about what you want to do, I recommend in this case a more advanced solution, a tool that serves exactly this purpose - the Unlocker.

It can handle very well a number of special cases when it comes to deleting a file such as the Access denied, sharing violations, source in use, file in use, ..and so on.

Adrian

The song of 99 bottles of beer

Almost everyone of us has for surely ran into this song. There is nothing special about it except the number of bottles in each verse that decreases until it reaches 0 and then everything starts over - what better example of a "loop".
So why not writing the song in all possible languages we can think about :)

Check it out here

http://99-bottles-of-beer.net/

Enjoy!

Adrian

Eiffel Tower by Night from St Cloud

 
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Adrian

The Short and Simple Story of the Credit Crisis

One of the best explanations to this situation.

Adrian