Dual Monitors

Joseph left voicemail a few days ago: “Circuit City has nice 19″ CRTs for $60 after rebate. Go get one.”

I’ve been wanting to have 2 monitors for a while, since dealing with 2 computers via a USB KVM switch is a hassle, but I’d been stalling for various reasons, including not wanting to disassemble parts of my desk. Still, a $200 monitor for $60 was too good a deal to pass up, so Laura and I sped to Circuit City.

I got the Amphion 19″ CM1997PF for $210, and I’ll get all but $60 of that back in six weeks to eight months, depending on the speed of the humanity-hating troll that handles CC’s rebates. The monitor’s the same size as my aging Optiquest Q95, and seems to be a pretty good monitor. It’s markedly brighter than the Q95, which makes color-matching a big pain in the ass. I’ve fiddled with the hardware and software color controls on both monitors for a few days, and I’m pretty close, but still don’t have a perfect match. The Amphion’s whites are much whiter than the Q95’s slightly dimmer, reddish whites.

For dual-monitor goodness, I’m using the following software:

• Ultramon – helps WinXP deal with dual monitors sanely
  • UltraVNC – VNC server on the PC

    • OSX2VNC – sends keyboard and mouse commands from the Mac to the PC The combination of OSX2VNC and UltraVNC is very nice. I have one monitor for the Mac, and one for the PC, and I only need one keyboard and mouse to drive both of them.

      Since games don’t work very well via VNC, I’m still using the KVM for switching the Amphion (the Mac’s main monitor), the keyboard, and the mouse, over to the PC. This lets me use the Amphion as the dual monitor for the PC, and control the PC directly with the USB keyboard and mouse.