The vast majority of people have a single monitor. Even suggesting adding a second would baffle them.
‘Eh, why?’ they might ask while staring at you as though you just landed in a spinning saucer.
Here’s my answer.
‘Because productivity is increased, desktop size doubled and it looks AWSOME’.
For those of you who follow me on Twitter you’ll have noticed that I spent an hour last night hooking up a second 19” monitor in my office. As I write this post I currently have Microsoft Outlook and Trillian Astra running on the spare screen with my whole laptop screen available for work. If I want to check my e-mails I just move my cursor to the second screen and use it as though it was a different computer. Then just move it back to the left until it reappears on my laptop – then back to work!
Seriously, for anyone who is even a semi-hardcore computer user I would definitely suggest this quick tip. It’s as easy as plugging in the new monitor, going to display settings and setting the resolution of monitor number 2. Easy.
The standard orientation of our computer screens is generally horizontal (also known as landscape) but monitors placed in portrait mode (where height becomes greater than the width) can be pretty useful for performing tasks that require lot of scrolling (like reading lengthy web pages).
Windows 7 includes a new option under Display Settings that can help you flip the screen from portrait to landscape mode (and vice-versa) without requiring additional software.
This may come very handy if you are using a dual monitor setup with Windows 7 where you want one screen in the default horizontal mode and other one in vertical mode for reading content.
There are so many financial applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch already, but how do you know which ones are actually worth using? Mint has put together a great list of the top 10 Financial applications everyone should use, so I thought I would post our top 5 and then let you head over to Mint to see the rest.
Bloomberg Mobile (Free)
Bloomberg
Wall Street Traders swear by the Bloomberg Terminal to analyze real-time financial market data, place trades, and get news and price quotes. Bloomberg Mobile isn’t quite the same thing but it is a beautifully designed app that provides up-to-the-minute news, stock quotes, company descriptions, and price chart and market trend analysis. The My Stocks feature is a more detailed replacement for Apple’s stock Stocks app. And Bloomberg Mobile takes full advantage of the iPhone’s position sensor by providing larger charts when you rotate the phone to a horizontal position.
Mobile Banking (Free)
Bank of America
Bank of America’s iPhone app, Mobile Banking is little more than a wrapper around its existing mobile site (which isn’t optimized for the iPhone) but if this is your bank you’ll still find it useful. You can use it to check available balances, pay bills, and transfer funds on-the-go 24/7. Its best feature is its ability to find the nearest ATM and Banking Center locations using the GPS in the iPhone, something that isn’t possible with the mobile site. BofA’s Online Banking Guarantee is its assurance that you won’t be responsible for any unauthorized transactions and it uses advanced encryption technology to prevent unauthorized access to your accounts and to protect your online identity.
PayPal (Free)
PayPal
In Japan many have thrown away their wallets in favor of paying for everything from train tickets to beer from a vending machine with their mobile phones. We’re not quite there yet but the PayPal app provides a tantalizing glimpse at this future. It provides complete access to your PayPal account allowing you to check your balances and send money to your friends and family, all from your iPhone. It supports 16 currencies and is secured by your existing PIN or password. It’s a good start but I’d like to see it go further. Missing is any way of displaying your transaction history and I’d also like to see it use the notification indicator on the app icon to show when money has arrived in your account.
Loan Shark ($4.99)
FoggyNoggin Software
Designed to help you navigate the often treacherous waters of financial lending, Loan Shark provides a number of features that let you calculate and compare loans from different vendors. You can calculate any component of a loan, including payment, interest rate or loan amount, see the full Amortization Table for the loan’s lifespan and play with “what-if” scenarios that let you determine the effect of making extra, higher, or lower payments. Loan Shark can help you determine how long it will take to pay off that credit card, determine how close you are to paying off your mortgage, and compare the cost of different loans, among many other uses. Kudos to FoggyNoggin Software for an easy-to-use and good looking interface that works well on a mobile device.
Bonus feature: Lets you locate nearby banks using the iPhone’s location-awareness
Tipulator (99 cents)
Tap Tap Tap
Tipulator stands out in a crowded field of tip calculators (it’s often said that the true test of how successful a new platform will be is how quickly a tip calculator appears for it) by marrying cute graphics with easy-to-use number dials. You can probably split the check without it but you won’t have as much fun doing it. And for 1/3 the price of your last latte, you owe it to yourself to at least try it.
If you constantly have 2, 3, or 16 windows open on your computer, WinSplit Revolution can help you organize your space. This little Windows utility automatically resizes and relocates windows making it easy to stack your programs vertically, horizontally, or in little boxes.
The program isn’t really that useful if you’ve got an 800 x 600 pixel display, but if you’ve got a high resolution widescreen monitor, WinSplit Revolution can help you make the most of your space. You can assign keyboard shortcuts to various positions. For instance, one hotkey can maximize the current window, while another can unmaximize it and drag it to the left side of the screen.
It has been announced that AT&T will join forces with Microsoft and use the Microsoft Surface. The announcement was made yesterday at the 5th Annual AT&T Press Luncheon during CTIA.
The Microsoft Surface features a 30″ multi touch screen which can detect any phones on its surface. With AT&T the Surface will have the capabilities of dragging videos, photos, ring tones, songs and dropping them into the phones. The Surface is a great concept but I cant see this making too much difference in phone shops throughout the USA. It would be much better if it could be used in restaurants. However, that being said im sure this is a nice additional revenue stream for Microsoft.
